PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


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PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


BY 


FREDERICK  ELMER  BOLTON,  Pn.D, 

DIRECTOR  OF  THE  SCHOOL  OF  EDUCATION  IN 

THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA 
AUTHOR  OF  "THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL  SYSTEM  OF  GERMANY" 


CHARLES    SCRIBJNER'S    SONS 

NEW  YORK          CHICAGO  BOSTON 


COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


L3 


IBRARV 

,  E  NORMAL  SCHOOL 
MA.    >U     -<TS  AND  HOME  ECONOMICS 
SANTA  BARBARA,  CALIFORNIA 


TO  MY  STUDENTS 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

THE  present  work  is  the  outgrowth  of  actual  class-room 
experience  in  teaching  the  subject  for  two  years  in  the  State 
Normal  School  at  Milwaukee  and  ten  years  in  the  State  Uni- 
versity of  Iowa.  Previous  to  this  experience,  many  of  the  ideas 
here  expressed  had  been  gradually  shaping  themselves  while 
the  author  was  teaching  and  supervising  in  public  schools.  All 
of  the  material  has  been  carefully  tested  in  junior  and  senior 
university  classes,  and  much  of  it  in  advanced  normal  school 
classes.  Portions  of  several  chapters  have  been  given  many 
times  in  teachers'  institutes  and  associations.  The  distinct  aim, 
however,  has  been  to  produce  a  text-book  of  college  grade  for 
beginners  in  the  study  of  educational  science. 

It  is  hoped  that  ten  years  of  public  school  experience  has 
given  the  book  a  practical  flavor.  No  science  or  art  is  worthy 
of  pursuit  unless  it  has  some  relation — direct  or  indirect — to  the 
every-day  pursuits  of  life.  The  end  of  all  science  should  be 
better  and  higher  living.  The  science  of  education  should  con- 
tribute richly  to  the  solution  of  the  every-day  problems  of  the 
teacher  and  the  parent.  This  contribution  should  be  in  the 
form  of  underlying  principles,  rather  than  prescriptions  and 
devices.  The  one  who  is  seeking  recipes  for  doing  specific 
things  will  seek  here  in  vain. 

Parents  and  other  citizens  need  an  interpretation  of  life.  A 
study  of  the  principles  underlying  the  great  problems  of  edu- 
cation gives  certain  phases  of  interpretation  in  a  singularly 
helpful  way.  I  have  been  much  encouraged  by  the  numbers  of 
students  who  have  spontaneously  spoken  of  the  new  interpre- 
tation of  all  their  studies  and  of  life  which  came  through  a  study 
of  the  science  of  education.  It  is  unfortunate  that  education 
and  teaching  have  been  regarded  as  synonymous  terms.  It  is 


viii  PREFACE 

hoped  that  this  book  may  help  to  modify  that  notion.  In 
reality,  the  study  of  educational  principles,  the  function  of 
education  in  society,  and  the  history  of  education  are  important 
for  lawyers,  doctors,  ministers,  journalists,  and  parents,  as  well 
as  for  teachers.  It  is  important  that  these  phases  of  the  study 
of  education  should  come  to  be  regarded  as  truly  liberalizing 
as  languages,  literature,  science,  or  mathematics. 

During  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  an  unprecedented 
amount  of  attention  has  been  devoted  to  the  scientific  study  of 
educational  problems.  Much  research  and  experimentation 
have  been  carried  on  and  the  results  recorded  largely  in  pe- 
riodical literature.  A  rich  and  interesting  literature  of  educa- 
tion has  thus  been  accumulated.  But  very  inadequate  attempts 
have  been  made  to  gather  the  fruits  of  the  old  and  the  new  into 
convenient  hand-books.  Consequently  much  valuable  material 
has  been  practically  inaccessible  to  beginning  students,  who 
are  usually  obliged  to  study  in  large  classes.  The  author  has 
felt  keenly  the  handicap  due  to  the  lack  of  such  manuals  and 
hopes  that  this  work  may  in  some  measure  remove  the  difficulty 
which  college  teachers  of  education  everywhere  have  recognized. 

The  chief  claim  made  for  this  book  is  that  it  assembles  the 
main,  well-tested  results  of  the  scientific  study  of  education 
from  the  psychological  and  biological  view-points  and  presents 
them  in  a  way  which  secures  continuity,  correlation,  and  a 
unified  interpretation  of  them.  It  was  originally  planned  to 
include  a  discussion  of  the  sociological  phases  of  education,  but 
the  magnitude  of  the  task  and  the  limits  of  the  size  of  the  book 
have  prevented.  It  is  not  assumed  that  all  of  the  possible  or 
valuable  principles  of  education  are  discussed  in  this  book. 
Neither  is  it  claimed  that  they  are  stated  in  the  most  critically 
logical  order.  From  the  stand-point  of  apperception  and  inter- 
est the  order  here  given  has  seemed  to  be  justified  by  experi- 
ence. Doubtless  the  order  of  chapters  may  be  varied  consid- 
erably with  equally  satisfactory  results.  There  has  been  no 
attempt  at  making  a  "comprehensive  system"  which  should 
excite  only  the  interest  of  the  "logic  chopper."  It  is  believed 


PREFACE  ix 

that  every  principle  set  forth  is  of  such  vital  importance  that 
its  expression  in  a  convenient  hand-book  will  be  welcomed. 
Additions  and  rearrangement  will  need  to  be  made  subsequently. 
It  is  hoped  that  this  book  will  be  regarded  as  a  pioneer  which 
may  be  useful  in  blazing  a  new  trail  into  the  land  so  full  of 
promise. 

The  author's  plan  in  the  class-room  has  been  to  make  the 
lectures  very  informal.  In  writing  them  out  for  a  larger  audi- 
ence it  is  hoped  that  the  informality  has  been  to  some  extent 
retained.  That  will  account  in  some  measure  for  the  size  of 
the  book.  One  great  defect  of  pedagogical  text-books  hereto- 
fore has  been  their  exceeding  brevity  and  abstractness.  They 
have  contained  summaries  instead  of  substance.  Such  books 
prove  unintelligible  to  beginners  and  unnecessary  to  advanced 
students.  To  teach  well  one  must  have  an  abundance  of  con- 
crete details  and  illustrations.  The  first  chapter  is  intended 
merely  as  an  introduction  and  differs  from  all  the  rest  in  being 
necessarily  abstract  and  condensed  rather  than  concrete  and 
expanded.  The  beginner  should  read  it  on  first  approaching 
the  subject  for  the  purpose  of  orientation  rather  than  with  the 
expectation  of  mastery.  The  broad  generalizations  can  only 
be  fully  comprehended  after  various  subjects  treated  in  the  sub- 
sequent chapters  have  been  studied.  The  student  is  advised 
to  reread  the  chapter  after  the  rest  of  the  book  is  mastered. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  guide  the  reader  to  the  rapidly 
growing  literature  of  education.  To  this  end  direct  quotations 
are  frequently  given  and  references  appended.  In  this  way 
the  author  has  hoped  also  to  give  credit  wherever  due  and  to 
acquaint  the  reader  with  some  of  the  many  who  are  contributing 
so  richly  to  the  great  work  of  education. 

F.  E.  B. 

IOWA  CITY,  IOWA, 
June,  1910. 


CONTENTS 

PREFACE vii 

CHAPTER  FACE 

I.    THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  ...  i 

II.    ADAPTATION,  ADJUSTMENT,  AND  SPECIALIZATION  OF 

FUNCTIONS 16 

III.  DEVELOPMENT  AND  SPECIALIZATION  OF  THE  NER- 

VOUS   SYSTEM   AND   THE    SIGNIFICANCE   FOR 

EDUCATION 28 

IV.  THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION 63 

V.    EDUCATIONAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RECAPITULATION  .  88 

VI.    THE  CULTURE  EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  .  108 

VII.    FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY  IN  EDUCATION  119 

VIII.    INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION      ....  140 

IX.    NATURE  AND  NURTURE  :  INHERITANCE  AND  EDU- 
CATION    183 

X.    CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  .    .    .  231 

XI.    WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE 260 

XII.    INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  .    .    .  302 

XIII.  THE  NATURE  OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES      .    .    .    .  322 

XIV.  THE  NATURE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF 

ASSOCIATION 349 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XV.  THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY  .    .    .  371 

XVI.  IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    ....  397 

XVII.    SENSORY  EDUCATION 431 

XVIII.    NATURE  OF  IMAGINATION 464 

XIX.    IMAGINATION  AND  EDUCATION 488 

XX.  APPERCEPTION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION  .    .    .  520 

XXI.  MOTOR  EXPRESSION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION  .  564 

XXII.    THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING 584 

XXIII.  THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION 601 

XXIV.  INDUCTION  AND  DEDUCTION  IN  EDUCATION  .     .     .  614 
XXV.    EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION 633 

XXVI.    INTEREST  AND  EDUCATION 666 

XXVII.    VOLITION  AND  MORAL  EDUCATION 705 

XXVIII.  GENERAL  DISCIPLINE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  VALUES  .  736 

INDEX 783 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION 

Popular  View  of  Education. — Education  is  commonly  meas- 
ured by  the  number  of  years  of  schooling  one  has  had,  the 
institutions  attended,  the  subjects  pursued,  degrees  conferred, 
and  by  other  similar  conventional  measuring  units.  One  whose 
school  training  has  been  abbreviated,  who  has  not  been  through 
the  traditional  mill  and  ground  out  according  to  a  standard 
pattern,  is  often  said  to  be  uneducated.  Even  many  scholarly 
people  think  of  the  science  or  the  philosophy  of  education  as 
dealing  wholly  with  methods  of  teaching  the  various  school 
subjects  or  with  school  management.  While  the  subject  of 
education  may  be  properly  concerned  with  principles  under- 
lying methods  of  instruction  and  management,  it  is  by  no  means 
restricted  to  them.  This  popular  conception  of  education  as 
something  confined  to  schools  and  school-rooms,  the  acquiring  of 
book  facts,  formal  drill  and  discipline,  is  altogether  too  narrow. 

New  Interpretation. — Education  is  not  a  new  process,  but 
it  is  receiving  new  interpretation.  Many  of  the  means  of 
education  are  of  very  recent  origin;  but  education  is  in 
reality  a  process  as  old  as  the  race  itself.  Whatever  influences 
one  in  such  a  way  as  to  determine  his  future  conduct  is  a  means 
of  education.  This  is  true  whether  the  influence  comes  from 
external  forces  or  as  a  resultant  of  one's  own  actions.  Educa- 
tion may  thus  be  good  or  bad;  may  elevate  or  debase.  The 
school,  though  conventionally  regarded  as  the  only  institution 
of  education,  is  of  comparatively  recent  development.  But 


2  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

it  is  not  the  most  fundamental  means  of  education,  even  though 
society  tends  to  relegate  all  educational  functions  to  it.  Re- 
flection shows  us  that  there  are  multitudes  of  influences  which 
help  to  determine  the  character  of  every  individual.  A  few 
of  these  factors  will  be  considered. 

The  Home  as  an  Educator. — First  consideration  may 
properly  be  given  to  the  home.  This  is  the  first  institution  to 
touch  the  life  of  the  individual,  and  in  many  ways  it  is  the 
most  influential  of  all  the  forces  brought  to  bear  upon  him. 
Though  the  school  and  one's  business  or  profession  give  more 
definite  mastery  of  technical  accomplishments  which  come  to 
be  regarded  as  the  fruits  of  education,  yet  the  use  to  which  these 
will  be  put  is  largely  determined  by  the  ideals  developed  in 
the  home.  Religious  creeds  are  gained  at  the  mother's  knee, 
political  beliefs  are  absorbed  in  the  family  circle,  and  social 
ideals  largely  fixed  by  family  customs.  Honesty,  veracity, 
politeness,  good  manners,  clean  living  and  temperance,  are 
most  easily  inculcated  in  the  home.  Likewise,  on  the  other 
hand,  immorality  and  unrighteousness  may  be  generally  traced 
to  undesirable  home  influences.  In  fact,  the  ideals  which 
dominate  life  and  character  and  give  them  significance  owe 
more  to  home  influences  than  to  all  others  combined.  So  im- 
portant is  this  early  formative  period  that  some  of  the  churches 
say:  "Give  me  the  child  for  the  first  seven  years,  and  the 
world  may  have  him  the  rest  of  his  life." 

Institutional  Influence. — Besides  the  home  there  are  many 
specific  institutions  and  activities  that  educate  as  really  as  do 
the  schools.  For  the  great  mass  they  even  provide  the  major 
portion  of  the  training  received.  All  forms  of  occupation  fur- 
nish training  and  extension  of  one's  horizon.  Various  scien- 
tific, historical  and  literary  societies,  clubs,  lodges,  labor  organ- 
izations, and  guilds,  encourage  the  social  instinct  and  give 
intellectual  and  moral  uplift,  Then  there  are  special  means 
employed  to  supplement  the  schools,  Among  these  are  lecture 
courses,  public  libraries,  reading  circles,  chautauquas,  and 
reading-rooms,  The  daily  newspaper,  the  magazine,  the 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  3 

telephone,  the  telegraph,  commercial  intercourse,  etc.,  all 
furnish  knowledge  and  incentives  for  learning,  and  supply 
outlets  for  activities  that  contribute  to  the  modification  of  the 
thoughts,  taste,  and  conduct  of  the  individual.  Even  plays, 
games,  sports,  and  pastimes  are  of  vast  moment  in  the  develop- 
ment  of  latent  capabilities  and  in  stimulating  new  ones.  In 
determining  a  boy's  moral  action  the  neighborhood  environ- 
ment and  the  neighbors'  boys  are  far  more  instrumental  than 
the  school. 

President  Butler  says:1  "The  doctrine  of  evolution  teaches 
us  to  look  upon  the  world  around  us — our  arts,  our  science, 
our  literature,  our  institutions,  and  our  religious  life — as  an 
integral  part,  indeed  as  the  essential  part  of  our  environment; 
and  it  teaches  us  to  look  upon  education  as  the  plastic  period  of 
adapting  and  adjusting  our  self-active  organism  to  this  vast 
series  of  hereditary  acquisitions."  Dr.  Harris 2  emphasizes 
the  importance  of  the  state  in  education,  and  maintains  that 
indirectly  it  is  the  most  influential  of  all.  He  writes:  "The 
influence  of  the  constitution  of  the  state,  and  of  its  transactions 
with  other  states  in  peace  and  war,  weaving  the  web  of  world 
history,  is  known  to  be  more  powerful  in  educating  the  in- 
dividual and  forming  his  character  than  any  of  the  three  phases 
of  education  mentioned  (home,  school,  church),  for  it  underlies 
them  and  makes  possible  whatever  perfection  they  may  have. 
Without  the  protection  of  the  state  no  institution  can  flourish, 
nothing  above  savage  or  barbarous  human  life  can  be  realized. 
.  .  .  The  state  is  the  essential  condition  for  history.  .  .  .  His- 
tory commences  with  the  evolution  of  man's  substantial  self 
and  its  realization  or  embodiment  in  a  state." 

Farm  Life. — The  duties  and  environment  of  the  farm  are 
often  thought  to  be  directly  opposed  to  education.  But  well- 
ordered  farm  life  offers  the  most  advantageous  sort  of  environ- 
ment and  discipline  that  childhood  and  youth  could  have.  At 
its  best,  when  made  significant  through  books,  good  schooling, 

1  Meaning  of  Education,  p.  13. 

2  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  266. 


4  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

and  the  intelligent  leadership  of  parents,  it  affords  certain  edu- 
cative means  that  money  cannot  purchase  in  crowded  cities. 
To  be  deprived  of  its  advantages  and  pleasures  is  almost  calami- 
tous. The  outdoor  exercise  and  healthful  recreations  develop 
firm  muscles  and  red  blood,  healthy  brains,  and  vigorous  con- 
stitutions, without  which  mental  development  can  proceed  only 
indifferently.  The  farm  duties  bring  a  sense  of  responsibility, 
so  often  lacking  in  city-bred  children,  and  also  secure  motor 
training  invaluable  for  all  future  accuracy  of  work  and  for  will 
development.  President  G.  Stanley  Hall  says:  "Of  all  work- 
schools,  a  good  farm  is  probably  the  best  for  motor  develop- 
ment. This  is  due  to  its  great  variety  of  occupations,  healthful 
conditions,  and  the  incalculable  phyletic  re-enforcements  from 
immemorial  times.  I  have  computed  some  threescore  industries, 
as  the  census  now  classifies  them,  that  were  more  or  less  gener- 
ally known  and  practised  sixty  years  ago  in  a  little  township 
which  not  only  in  this  but  in  other  respects  has  many  features 
of  an  ideal  educational  environment  for  adolescent  boys,'  com- 
bining as  it  does  not  only  physical  and  industrial,  but  civil 
and  religious  elements  in  wise  proportions  and  with  pedagogic 
objectivity,  and  representing  the  ideal  of  such  a  state  of  in- 
telligent citizen-voters  as  was  contemplated  by  the  framers  of 
our  Constitution."  Because  of  its  opportunities  for  immediate 
and  prolonged  contact  with  nature  there  is  offered  the  best 
possible  preliminary  nourishment  for  the  understanding  and 
appreciation  of  science,  literature,  and  art.  Here  is  offered 
the  chance  to  find  "tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running 
brooks,  sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything." 

The  Playground. — The  function  of  play  as  an  educative 
factor  is  only  just  beginning  to  be  realized.  It  is  not  long  since 
play  was  very  generally  regarded  by  serious-minded  people 
as  sinful.  We  now  know  that  through  play  the  child  not  only 
gains  necessary  relaxation  and  invigoration,  but  the  forms 
of  play  are  instinctive  expressions  of  the  unfolding  potentiali- 
ties gained  through  race  experience.  Play  not  only  retraces 
ancestral  experiences,  but  anticipates  future  adult  experiences. 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  5 

To  work  properly  in  adult  life  there  must  be  natural  and  abun- 
dant play  in  childhood.  Bagehot  wrote :  "  Man  made  the  school, 
God  made  the  playground.  Before  letters  were  invented  or 
books,  or  governesses  discovered,  the  neighbor's  children,  the 
outdoor  life,  the  fists  and  the  wrestling  sinews,  the  old  games 
(the  oldest  things  in  the  world),  the  bare  hill,  the  clear  river, — 
these  were  education;  and  now,  though  Xenophon  and  sums 
become  obsolete,  these  are  and  remain.  Horses  and  marbles, 
the  knot  of  boys  beside  the  schoolboy  fire,  the  hard  blows  given 
and  the  harder  ones  received, — these  educate  mankind." 

Influence  of  Chance  Environment. — Not  only  purposive 
influences  educate,  but  also  all  chance  environment.  The 
slums  educate  as  forcibly  as  do  Grand  Avenue,  the  church, 
and  the  school;  a  candidate  for  the  penitentiary  helps  to  edu- 
cate our  boys  no  less  than  does  the  Sunday-school  teacher. 
Sometimes  the  chance  and  baneful  education  is  more  forceful 
than  the  designed  and  elevating.  According  to  Spencer's 
definition  the  purpose  of  education  is  to  prepare  for  complete 
living.  This  even  is  a  conception  of  an  ideal  education.  Dewey 
has  defined  the  term  in  a  much  more  fundamental  sense  by 
declaring  that  education  is  not  solely  a  preparation  for  some- 
thing in  the  future.  It  may  include  that,  but  there  is  something 
more  basal.  Education,  he  says,  is  life  itself;  and  conversely 
life  is  education.  Here  is  the  only  conception  which  is  broad 
enough,  even  when  we  consider  ideal  education.  According  to 
this  conception  every  individual  becomes  educated,  in  fact,  none 
can  escape  it.  Even  the  lower  animals,  as  well  as  man,  un- 
dergo education,  for  do  not  their  experiences  bias  their  future 
conduct  ? 

Influence  of  Primitive  Arts  and  Occupations. — Shall  we 
not  consider  the  stride  from  savagery  to  civilization  as  edu- 
cation? But  through  the  long  struggle  there  were  no  schools 
except  the  effective  school  of  experience.  In  this  struggle  with 
the  elements,  with  wild  beasts,  and  with  each  other,  were  men 
not  taught  some  things?  Whenever  one  is  taught  anything  or 
learns  anything  there  is  education.  Were  not  primitive  men 


6  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

for  long  ages  learning  how  to  make  implements  for  warfare,  for 
the  hunt,  and  the  chase;  learning  to  make  fire,  how  to  cook, 
and  how  to  spin  and  weave;  how  to  clothe  themselves,  provide 
shelter  and  protection;  how  to  plough,  plant,  and  harvest;  how 
to  cure  disease  and  avoid  pestilence;  learning  methods  of  trans- 
portation, barter,  and  exchange;  learning  how  to  dig,  smelt, 
and  fashion  the  ores;  how  to  utilize  the  wind  and  water,  and 
employ  the  simplest  mechanical  principles  ?  And  when  learned 
were  these  things  not  taught?  And  have  they  not  influenced 
profoundly  the  whole  character  of  subsequent  history? 

We  are  prone  to  forget  that  the  school  of  experience  has  been 
in  session  since  the  world  began  and  there  have  been  no  vaca- 
tions. Nature  has  not  missed  assigning  a  single  lesson.  The 
credits  received  for  the  training  have  been  recorded  with  ab- 
solute fidelity.  The  education  which  man  has  received  in  this 
wise  is  incomparably  greater  and  the  results  are  much  more 
enduring  than  the  results  of  a  few  centuries  of  formal  education 
since  schools  began.  In  cudgelling  his  brains  for  some  new 
school  arts  which  might  interest  and  profit  the  children  it  would 
be  well  for  the  school-master  to  take  a  retrospective  glance  and 
pass  in  review  the  school  arts  which  mother  nature  has  em- 
ployed. If  he  can  discern  anything  which  is  related  to  getting 
a  living,  providing  food,  clothing,  shelter,  amusement,  or  ad- 
vantages, there  he  will  find  an  interesting  and  effective  school 
instrument.  Utility  has  been  the  watchword  of  nature;  it 
should  be  the  school-master's. 

When  considering  the  function  of  school  training  it  is  impor- 
tant to  remember  that  the  development  and  progress  attained 
since  the  invention  of  systematic  schooling  might  be  represented 
by  a  dot,  while  that  achieved  in  the  pre-school  period  through 
the  exercises  gained  in  connection  with  the  everyday  occupa- 
tions in  providing  food,  shelter,  clothing,  protection,  and  recrea- 
tion would  have  to  be  represented  by  a  line  of  infinite  length. 
If  the  educational  values  of  industrial  activities  were  correctly 
understood,  we  should  utilize  them  far  more  than  we  now  do 
in  formal  education  instead  of  bringing  forward  something  far 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  7 

removed  from  the  basal  instincts  of  mankind.  The  school  ought 
to  be  the  most  effective  instrument  of  evolution,  and  should  co- 
ordinate all  means  that  have  proved  valuable  in  phylogenetic 
development  instead  of  discarding  them  and  using  only  the 
latest  discovered  means. 

Bain  wrote  1  that,  "  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word  man  is 
educated,  either  for  good  or  evil,  by  everything  that  he  experi- 
ences from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  But  in  the  more  limited 
and  usual  sense  the  term  education  is  confined  to  the  efforts 
made,  of  set  purpose,  to  train  men  in  a  particular  way — the 
efforts  of  the  grown-up  part  of  the  community  to  inform  the 
intellect  and  mould  the  character  of  the  young;  and  more  espe- 
cially to  the  labors  of  professional  educators  or  school-masters." 

School  an  Interpreter  of  Experience. — The  school  should 
be  the  educational  institution  par  excellence.  It  should  be,  and 
is  coming  to  be,  the  institution  which  co-ordinates  all  the  best 
educational  processes  of  life  and  adds  its  own  special  forms. 
The  school  studies  principles  of  life  rather  than  mere  mechani- 
cal modes  of  immediate  use  in  gaining  a  livelihood  or  deriving 
momentary  pleasure  and  happiness.  It  thus  furnishes  an  in- 
terpretation of  life  and  gives  significance  to  all  other  modifying 
influences.  It  looks  to  the  future  more  than  to  the  immediate 
present.  The  school  is  the  standard-bearer  of  the  highest 
ideals  of  the  present  and  of  the  past.  Advanced  forms  of 
schools,  also,  seek  to  discover  new  truths  and  new  ideals,  and 
thus  become  not  only  guidons  of  established  forms  of  conduct, 
but  heralds  of  new  ideals.  Universities  have  been  the  greatest 
factors  in  advancing  civilization  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 

The  Child  the  Centre.— But  even  after  cataloguing  all  the 
ideals  of  education  and  all  the  institutions  and  agencies  that 
have  a  modifying  influence  upon  the  individual  during  his 
life,  we  have  considered  education  from  only  one  side  and 
that  the  least  potent.  Such  a  study  is  like  a  study  of  Hamlet 
with  Hamlet  left  out.  Modern  educational  inquiry  has  shifted 
the  view-point  to  include  not  only  ideals  and  agencies  but  the 

1  Education  as  a  Science,  p.  6. 


8  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

central  figure  in  the  process— the  child.  Nature  has  been  pro- 
ceeding slowly,  steadily,  for  eons  in  the  production  of  the  crown- 
ing product  of  evolution,  and  if  we  would  educate  wisely  we 
must  spell  out  at  least  the  fundamentals  of  the  secret.  Though 
we  may  utilize  artificial  substitutes  here  and  there,  yet  all  must 
be  in  harmony  with  the  almost  indelible  traditional  ways  found 
efficient  in  ages  of  experimentation.  The  modern  educationist 
is  admonished  to  go  to  nature,  consider  her  ways  and  be  wise. 
The  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  deserves  lasting 
credit  for  centring  the  attention  of  educators  upon  the  child 
instead  of  the  curricula.  Though  not  losing  sight  of  ideals  and 
means,  yet  an  effort  is  made  to  understand  these  in  relation 
to  the  developing  being.  The  most  suggestive  history  of  edu- 
cation is  not  the  history  of  man-devised  practices  and  theories, 
but  the  history  which  nature  has  written  in  the  human  embryo, 
disclosing  a  long,  circuitous  march  from  the  humblest  begin- 
nings to  the  present  wonderful  attainment.  Every  child  comes 
into  the  world  freighted  with  potentialities  gathered  laboriously 
during  long  past  ages.  These  are  so  integrally  woven  that  to 
devise  inharmonious  educational  machinery  which  cramps  or 
distorts  is  to  produce  monstrosities.  This  suggests  that  there 
is  no  fixity  of  powers.  Evolution  has  not  ceased.  Where  there 
is  evolution  there  is  plasticity.  But  the  plasticity  of  the  child 
is  not  that  of  a  lump  of  clay,  yielding,  resisting,  but  passive  when 
modified.  Biological  plasticity  means  in  addition  to  mere  modi- 
fiability  that  new  lines  of  growth  and  development  are  possible. 
Through  heredity  there  are  strivings  along  old  lines  of  growth, 
but  with  power  for  new  growth.  The  education  of  the  child 
is  a  problem  of  life,  not  of  an  inert  lump  of  putty;  a  problem 
of  biology,  not  of  physics;  a  problem  of  kinetics,  not  of  statics. 
Hereditary  Prepotentialities.  —  Donaldson,  in  his  monu- 
mental work1  says:  "Education  consists  in  modifications  of 
the  central  nervous  system.  For  this  experience  the  cell  ele- 
ments are  peculiarly  fitted.  They  are  plastic  in  the  sense  that 
their  connections  are  not  rigidly  fixed,  and  they  remember,  or, 

1  The  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p,  336, 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  9 

to  use  a  physiological  expression,  tend  to  repeat  previous  re- 
actions. By  virtue  of  these  powers  the  cells  can  adjust  them- 
selves to  new  surroundings,  and  further  learn  to  respond  with 
great  precision  and  celerity  to  such  impulses  as  are  familiar  be- 
cause important. 

"  In  its  size  and  development  the  central  nervous  system  is 
precocious.  Long  before  birth  all  the  cells  destined  to  compose 
it  are  already  formed,  though  by  no  means  all  are  developed 
in  the  sense  that  they  have  acquired  the  form  and  connections 
characteristic  for  those  at  maturity.  At  the  close  of  embry- 
onic life  the  sensory  nerves  rapidly  extend,  and  the  connection 
of  the  central  cells  with  limiting  surfaces  of  the  body  being  thus 
established,  all  experiences  become  those  of  education.  The  act 
of  living  is  thus  the  most  important  natural  educational  process 
with  which  the  human  body  has  to  do,  yet  it  is  usual  to  restrict 
the  term  education  to  a  series  of  formal  events  falling  within  the 
period  of  school  life.  ...  It  appears  probable  that  the  education 
of  the  schools  is  but  one,  and  that,  too,  rather  an  insignificant 
one,  of  many  surrounding  conditions  influencing  growth." 

Heredity  marks  out  in  broad  outlines  the  limits  of  the  abilities 
of  each  individual.  Formal  educational  processes  will  deter- 
mine the  extent  to  which  latent  possibilities  are  rendered  kinetic, 
but  they  cannot  create  tendencies.  For  example,  one  devoid  of 
genuine  musical  capacity  cannot  develop  into  a  master  any 
more  than  an  oak  shoot  can  develop  into  a  pine,  or  a  racing 
filly  into  a  draught-horse.  Mathematical  power,  linguistic  ca- 
pacity, or  delicacy  of  touch  which  will  give  surgical  skill,  artistic 
imagination  and  execution,  are  inborn  and  not  created  through 
school  training.  Besides  his  physical  inheritance  of  bodily 
form,  size,  appearance,  his  instincts,  mental  predispositions, 
and  capacities,  every  child  receives  a  social  inheritance  in  the 
form  of  language,  institutions,  laws,  customs,  printed  literature, 
and  the  results  of  scientific  achievements,  which  at  once  put  him 
a  long  way  ahead  in  the  march  of  civilization.  Without  them 
his  physical  heritage  would  be  incapable  of  securing  him  much 
advancement. 


10 

In  a  word,  the  whole  natural  history  of  the  individual  has  been 
operative  in  shaping  his  destiny.  The  given  individual  is  the 
resultant  of  all  forces  acting  upon  the  developing  organisms 
from  the  time  they  began  life  as  simple,  one-celled  congeners  of 
an  aqueous  medium.  By  life  is  meant  not  only  the  individual's 
own  life  but  all  his  ancestral  life.  One's  education  begins  not 
only  two  hundred  years  before  one  is  born,  but  eons  before. 
A  good  share  of  the  life  of  the  given  individual  is  a  process  of 
the  unfolding  of  his  potential  capacities.  Evolution  has  plainly 
taught  us  that  in  attempting  to  bring  about  any  condition 
nature  starts  with  what  is,  and  utilizes  the  present  conditions. 
To  reform  a  criminal  is  a  work  of  time,  and  all  efforts  toward 
that  end  must  consider  what  his  past  has  been.  To  reform 
a  hardened  criminal  is  a  different  proposition  from  rescuing 
juvenile  offenders.  In  dealing  with  pupils  in  school,  to  lose 
sight  of  a  boy's  past  life  and  his  heredity  is  to  fail  completely 
to  understand  the  means  of  further  development.  In  attempt- 
ing institutional  reforms  many  failures  result  simply  because 
unintelligent  reformers  attempt  to  graft  alien  measures  upon 
stocks  that  are  unrelated  to  them.  An  oak  shoot  cannot  be 
grafted  upon  the  apple-tree;  neither  can  ideal  social  institu- 
tions be  made  to  order;  they  must  be  the  outgrowth  of  old 
conditions  made  to  fit  new  times. 

Many  features  of  street  life  and  even  of  home  environment  are 
out  of  harmony  with  all  desirable  educational  ideals,  and  they 
cannot  be  utilized  as  agencies  of  ideal  growth,  but  they  must 
be  considered  and  often  combated.  The  farmer  does  not  try 
to  promote  the  growth  of  weeds,  but  he  cannot  ignore  them. 
Much  soil  will  not  produce  crops  until  the  retarding  agencies 
have  been  overcome  or  eradicated.  Similarly  in  education, 
all  native  tendencies  as  well  as  environing  conditions  must 
be  understood  and  reckoned  with  if  wasteful  methods  are  to 
be  avoided.  Education  is  concerned  with  the  development  of 
every  desirable  quality  of  body  or  mind  which  might  be  named. 
It  is  equally  concerned  with  the  suppression  of  every  undesir- 
able one. 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION  n 

Because  of  the  necessity  of  understanding  the  past  if  we  would 
build  wisely  for  the  future,  all  the  great  subjects  of  sociology, 
psychology,  and  education  have  come  to  be  considered  from 
the  genetic  or  evolutionary  point  of  view.  If  we  would  act 
wisely  upon  the  individual  mind  or  society  we  must  take  into 
account  the  present  status  and  also  the  long,  circuitous  proc- 
esses by  which  the  present  has  been  attained.  We  must  note 
what  factors  have  contributed  to  the  growth  of  desirable  quali- 
ties and  what  have  eliminated  undesirable  ones.  We  must  also 
know  the  hidden  potentialities  which  only  need  the  slightest 
encouragement  to  blossom  forth  in  rich  profusion,  as  well  as 
those  whose  counteraction  demand  elimination  or  suppression 
before  the  germs  of  good  may  be  quickened  into  life. 

Education  as  Unfoldment  and  Adjustment. — Education  is 
thus  recognized  as  a  manifold  process  of  aiding  the  individual 
to  come  into  full  possession  of  all  the  desirable  features  of 
his  heritage,  to  minimize  the  undesirable  ones,  and  to  initiate 
new  tendencies.  The  child  should  be  developed  definitely  in 
harmony  with  innate  tendencies  and  toward  the  best  ideals 
attained  by  the  race.  That  is,  both  biological  and  social  hered- 
ity are  to  be  heeded.  Education  is  consequently  a  process  of 
development  and  of  modification  or  adjustment  to  environ- 
ment and  to  the  ideals  of  perfection  conceived  by  society  and 
by  the  individual.  It  involves  all  the  forces  operating  to  mould 
the  individual.  </These  forces  include  natural  environment, 
social  environment,  institutional  environment,  as  well  as  the 
factors  of  food,  clothing,  climate,  etc.  \  The  amoeba  has  to 
adjust  itself  to  a  changing  habitat.  The  freshman  likewise 
has  to  adjust  himself  to  the  college  surroundings,  so  different 
from  his  home  village.  Each  is  modified  in  the  process,  and 
successes  or  failures  in  life  are  measured  by  the  power  of  ad- 
justment to  the  new  conditions. 

''This  period  of  adjustment,"  says  Dr.  Butler,1  "constitutes, 
then,  the  period  of  education;  and  this  period  of  adjustment 
must,  as  it  seems  to  me,  give  us  the  basis  for  all  educational 

1  The  Meaning  of  Education,  p.  15. 


12  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

theory  and  all  educational  practice.  It  must  be  the  point  of 
departure  in  that  theory  and  that  practice,  and  it  must  at  the 
same  time  provide  us  with  our  ideals.  When  we  hear  it  some- 
*  times  said,  'All  education  must  start  from  the  child,'  we  must 
add,  'Yes,  and  lead  into  human  civilization';  and  when  it  is 
said  on  the  other  hand  that  all  education  must  start  from  the 
traditional  past,  we  must  add,  'Yes,  and  be  adapted  to  the 
child.'  '  Education  thus  viewed  places  weighty  obligations 
upon  each  individual.  Every  person  should  become  concerned 
for  his  own  welfare  and  that  of  the  race. 

Ideal  Education  Seeks  Human  Perfection. — Attention  has 
been  drawn  to  these  lower  forms  of  influence  which  bias 
conduct,  in  order  to  assist  in  understanding  the  complexity 
of  the  problem  of  ideal  education.  The  formal  processes  of 
education  are  designed  to  be  applied  to  an  individual  for  the 
purpose  of  developing,  modifying,  or  moulding  him  in  harmony 
with  ideal  conceptions  of  development.  These  ideals  may  be 
conceived  by  the  individual  himself  or  by  others  concerned  in 
his  education.  The  processes  may  be  applied  by  the  individ- 
ual or  by  those  interested  in  him.  The  highest  results  are  not 
reached  until  the  individual  himself  consciously  strives  toward 
ideal  perfection. 

The  National  Educational  Association  at  its  annual  meeting 
in  1905,  at  Asbury  Park,  New  Jersey,  voiced  its  sentiments 
concerning  the  highest  functions  of  education.  As  a  part  of 
its  resolutions  it  was  stated  that  "the  Association  regrets  the 
revival  in  some  quarters  of  the  idea  that  the  common  school  is 
the  place  for  teaching  nothing  but  reading,  spelling,  writing, 
and  ciphering;  and  takes  this  occasion  to  declare  that  the  ulti- 
mate object  of  popular  education  is  to  teach  the  children  how  to 
live  righteously,  healthily,  and  happily,  and  that  to  accomplish 
this  object  it  is  essential  that  every  school  inculcate  the  love  of 
truth,  justice,  purity,  and  beauty  through  the  study  of  biography, 
history,  ethics,  natural  history,  music,  drawing,  and  manual 
arts.  .  .  .  Character  is  the  real  aim  of  the  schools  and  the  ulti- 
mate reason  for  the  expenditure  of  millions  for  their  mainte- 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION    13 

nance."  The  foregoing  are  statements  of  the  highest  aim  of 
education.  Attention  is  directed  to  them  in  this  connection  to 
suggest  that  most  of  these  aims  are  equally  well  inculcated  out- 
side of  formal  school  work. 

Education  Concerns  Posterity. — Education  is  not  a  matter 
which  concerns  the  individual  alone,  but  also  his  posterity. 
The  effects  of  the  education  of  a  given  generation  do  not  ter- 
minate with  its  death  but  are  transmitted  to  succeeding  ones. 
Through  heredity  the  results  of  education  are  conserved  for 
society.  Not  only  are  the  sins  of  the  fathers  visited  upon  the 
children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generations,  but  also  the 
virtues  of  the  fathers  are  manifest  through  hundreds  of  genera- 
tions of  them  that  love  the  Lord  and  keep  His  commandments. 
By  his  progress  toward  the  ideals  of  the  race  each  one  should 
be  a  contributor  to  its  desirable  attainments  and  to  higher  ideals. 
One's  education  is  relatively  inefficient  until  he  consciously 
strives  to  understand  and  approach  perfection.  Similarly  edu- 
cation is  at  a  low  ebb  where  the  majority  of  its  individuals  are 
not  earnestly  seeking  higher  development.  Every  individual 
should  realize  the  far-reaching  effects  of  every  thought,  every 
feeling,  and  every  action.  One  who  grasps  the  full  significance 
of  education  in  the  light  of  evolution  cannot  fail  to  be  more  con- 
cerned for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow  men  and  for  posterity.  The 
faithful  conservation  of  all  the  effects  of  righteousness  accounts 
for  race  progress.  Such  a  conception  is  a  doctrine  of  altruism 
and  of  the  highest  optimism.  It  is  hoped  that  this  is  reflected 
in  all  the  succeeding  pages. 

Education  and  Evolution. — Viewed  in  this  broad  way,  it  is 
seen  that  education  is  an  evolutionary  process.  Every  situation 
in  life  tends  to  modify  the  individual  and  to  produce  new  ad- 
justments. The  whole  of  life  is  educative.  Not  only  do  ex- 
periences even  passively  received  produce  modifications,  but  on 
the  part  of  all  life  there  is  a  striving  toward  new  conditions. 
This  is  true  of  life  from  the  simplest  amoeba  to  the  grandest 
work  of  nature.  These  new  conditions  are  the  ideals.  The 
multitude  think  of  evolution  as  operative  in  the  production  of 


i4  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

plant  and  animal  forms,  and  generally  as  a  force  of  the  long-gone 
past,  but  evolution  did  not  cease  with  the  crayfish.  It  is  going 
on  all  about  us  at  a  rate  never  before  equalled  or  appreciated. 
The  most  mighty  evolutionary  force  is  that  of  the  conscious 
education  of  human  society.  The  function  of  education  nar- 
rowly conceived  stops  with  the  training  of  individuals,  but  the 
ultimate  object  is  not  an  individual,  or  even  individuals,  but 
society.  The  true  educator  must  be  concerned  not  only  with 
adjusting  John  and  Mary  to  particular  niches  in  life,  but  he 
must  look  to  the  development  of  higher  ideals  for  the  whole 
human  race  and  the  conscious  striving  for  and  attainment  of 
these  ideals.  Each  individual  should  feel  his  obligation  to 
leave  society  better  than  he  found  it.^/  Because  he  stands  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  past  he  is  responsible  and  unworthy  the 
"Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant,"  unless  the  world 
is  the  beneficiary  through  his  having  lived  in  it. 

Several  recent  writers,  prominent  among  them  Spencer,  Fiske, 
Butler,  and  O'Shea,  have  emphasized  the  idea  of  education  as 
a  process  of  adjustment.  They  would  not  have  us  infer  that 
the  adjustment  is  an  expedient  of  adaptation  to  unavoidable 
conditions  of  environment.  In  its  higher  phases  it  would  cer- 
tainly involve  the  adjustment  of  the  individual  to  the  best  ideals 
conceived  by  the  race.  Definite  educational  means  seek  to 
realize  these  very  aims. 

Since  education  is  as  broad  as  life  itself,  the  biological  view 
will  be  made  prominent  throughout  this  book.  The  intimate 
relations  between  mind  and  body  and  the  correlation  between 
their  functions  make  it  imperative  to  give  due  consideration  to 
certain  physiological  aspects  of  educational  processes.  But  the 
superlative  problem  of  every  educator  is  to  influence  the  mind, 
to  produce  modifications  of  intellectual,  emotional,  and  voli- 
tional life.  Hence  a  thorough  knowledge  of  mind  and  its  means 
of  development  should  be  the  highest  concern  of  every  educator. 
In  subsequent  chapters  the  psychological  aspects  of  education 
will  therefore  occupy  a  relatively  large  space.  While  no  special 
section  is  set  apart  for  a  consideration  of  the  social  phases  of 


THE  NEW  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDUCATION    15 

education,  at  every  step  the  effect  of  society  in  shaping  the  indi- 
vidual consciousness  is  recognized.  Likewise,  while  no  separate 
treatment  is  devoted  to  educational  ideals,  yet  a  discussion  of 
this  phase  of  the  subject  is  interspersed  throughout  the  book. 


CHAPTER  II 

ADAPTATION,  ADJUSTMENT,   AND    SPECIALIZATION 
OF  FUNCTIONS 

General  Considerations. — The  previous  chapter  has  prepared 
the  way  for  a  wider  conception  of  education  than  that  generally 
held  by  the  popular  mind.  Most  definitions  of  education  char- 
acterize it  as  a  preparatory  stage  for  something  yet  to  come. 
This  is  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  Spencer  was  right 
in  regarding  education  as  a  preparation  for  complete  living,  but 
Dewey  has  furnished  a  desirable  supplement  by  showing  that 
all  life  processes  and  activities  are  a  vital  part  of  education. 
Consequently  while  we  properly  regard  the  formal,  artificial 
educational  processes  as  preparation  for  adult  life,  let  us  not 
forget  that  the  very  maintenance  of  an  existence  is  a  schooling 
more  rigorous  and  influential  than  any  artificial  exercises  we 
may  interpose. 

Since  all  of  life's  experiences  are  contributory  factors,  whether 
we  will  or  no,  we  must  then  include  in  our  educational  philosophy 
not  only  mental,  moral,  and  even  physical  education,  but  we 
must  make  our  consideration  cover  a  field  as  broad  as  life  itself. 
Biology,  the  science  of  life,  is  not  confined,  as  many  seem  to 
suppose,  to  worms,  insects,  beetles,  and  algse;  but  includes  man 
as  well — not  only  physical  but  psychical  and  moral  man.  It  is 
perfectly  proper  to  speak  of  the  biological  consideration  of 
memory,  imagination,  instinct,  the  emotions,  love  of  right,  etc. 
They  all  have  their  genetic  or  developmental  aspect.  In  dealing 
with  these,  even  in  a  practical  way  in  the  school-room,  we  ought 
to  know  how  they  differ  in  children  and  adults,  in  different 
families,  in  different  children,  in  different  races,  their  laws  of 
growth  and  development,  their  instinctive  beginnings,  and  their 

16 


ADAPTATION  OF  FUNCTIONS  17 

hereditary  variations.  Consequently  this  and  several  suc- 
ceeding chapters  will  deal  with  the  biological  phases  of 
education. 

With  these  preliminary  remarks  and  with  the  admonition  to 
keep  constantly  in  mind  that  experience  and  education,  funda- 
mentally considered,  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  we  shall  enter 
upon  the  discussion  of  some  concrete  facts  showing  how  adjust- 
ment of  various  organs,  organisms,  and  functions  to  ever- varying 
conditions  has  produced  modified  organs,  organisms,  and  func- 
tions, in  harmony  with  the  demands  of  new  environments. 
Illustrations  will  be  drawn  from  lower  animal  life  and  even 
from  the  plant  world  to  exemplify  the  points  under  considera- 
tion. Similar  processes  though  often  infinitely  more  complex, 
affect  man's  progress  and  destiny  and  constitute  the  essential 
features  of  education. 

Adaptation  in  Unicellular  Animals. — Without  varied  environ- 
ment and  consequent  varied  experiences,  development,  progress, 
education  in  the  best  sense  could  not  be.  In  the  first  chapter  it 
was  shown  that  anything  is  educative  which  acts  upon  individ- 
uals or  a  species  so  as  to  mould  them  to  new  ways  or  to  bias 
their  future  conduct.  The  resultant  tendencies  constitute  the 
education  received.  With  this  idea  more  firmly  in  mind,  let  us. 
consider  the  unicellular  animals  in  their  relation  to  environment, 
and  study  in  them  a  most  primitive  educational  experience. 
These  little  creatures  can  exist  only  under  tolerably  uniform 
conditions.  A  slight  increase  or  decrease  of  heat  means  de- 
struction to  them.  Their  aqueous  environment  is  a  relatively 
simple,  uniform,  and  unchanging  medium  in  which  to  exist. 
They  have  little  to  learn  to  fit  them  for  this  environment.  It  is 
probable  that  they  have  been  little  modified  through  long  ages. 
President  Jordan  says,  "That  the  character  of  the  body  struct- 
ure of  the  Protozoa  has  changed  but  little  since  early  geologic 
times  is  explained  by  the  even,  unchanging  character  of  their 
surroundings.  The  oceans  of  former  ages  have  undoubtedly 
been  essentially  like  the  oceans  of  to-day — not  in  extent  and 
position,  but  in  their  character  of  place  of  habitation  for  ani- 


i8  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

mals.  The  environment  is  so  simple  and  uniform  that  there  is 
little  demand  for  diversity  of  habits  and  consequent  diversity 
of  body  structure.  Where  life  is  easy  there  is  no  necessity  for 
complex  structure  or  complicated  habits  of  living."1  But  even 
here  we  find  individual  and  race  adaptations  and  modifications 
which  permanently  influence  all  subsequent  actions.  That  is, 
these  minute  animals  are  in  that  sense  educated. 

Experiments  in  Adaptation. — Lloyd  Morgan  records 2  the 
results  of  experiments  by  Dr.  Dallinger  to  determine  whether 
monads  could  gradually  become  acclimatized  to  a  temperature 
higher  than  60°  Fahr.,  that  which  is  normal  to  them.  By  the 
end  of  four  months  the  temperature  had  been  raised  to  70° 
without  destroying  them.  On  reaching  73°  adverse  conditions 
were  observed.  A  rest  of  two  months  was  made  at  this  point, 
and  then  the  gradual  increase  resumed.  In  five  months  78° 
was  reached.  "By  a  series  of  advances,  with  periods  of  rest 
between,  a  temperature  of  158°  Fahr.  was  reached.  It  was 
estimated  that  the  research  extended  over  half  a  million  gen- 
erations. Here  then,  these  monads  became  gradually  acclima- 
tized to  a  temperature  more  than  double  that  to  which  their 
ancestors  had  been  accustomed — a  temperature  which  brought 
rapid  death  to  their  unmodified  relatives." 

Although  allowing  for  elimination  of  the  unfit,  Morgan  says: 
"But  in  any  case,  the  fact  remains  that  the  survivors  had,  in 
half  a  million  generations,  acquired  a  power  of  existing  at  a 
temperature  to  which  no  individual  in  its  single  life  could  become 
acclimatized.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  hereditary  transmission 
of  a  faculty."  Here  we  have  an  illustration  of  the  permanent 
modification — education — of  a  species  through  experience. 
These  processes  of  adjustment  of  the  individual  to  environment 
constitute  the  most  primitive  type  of  education.  This  is  true 
of  all  the  lower  animals  as  well  as  of  man. 

Effects  of  Experience. — There  is  a  constant  struggle  on  the 
part  of  each  animal  to  master  its  surroundings  and  to  put  itself 
into  harmonious  relation  with  them  as  it  understands  them. 

1  Animal  Lijc,  p.  23.  2  Animal  Life  and  Intelligence,  p.  147. 


ADAPTATION   OF   FUNCTIONS  19 

Each  experience  produces  a  modification  of  form,  structure,  or 
function,  either  physical  or  psychical,  and  the  modification 
becomes  a  permanent  possession,  producing  predispositions 
which  tend  to  bias  all  future  action.  This  means  that  the 
animal  profits  by  experience.  The  process  of  learning  by 
experience  is  education.  Thus  we  see  that  all  organisms  receive 
education.  It  may  not  be  according  to  our  ideals,  but  there  is 
education  nevertheless.  Not  only  man,  but  the  lowly  earth- 
worm and  the  amoeba  receive  it.  Not  only  does  the  individual 
gain  an  education,  but  through  heredity  the  species  is  made  a 
sharer  and  a  contributor. 

In  the  effort  toward  adjustment  there  is  always  an  accentua- 
tion of  some  function  or  organ.  For  example,  in  the  effort  to 
capture  a  certain  kind  of  food  certain  organs  or  sets  of  muscles 
are  brought  into  new  use,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  man,  when  mere 
muscular  power  no  longer  suffices  he  uses  his  wits  to  effect  a 
capture.  In  the  former  case  the  muscles  that  underwent  extra 
exercise  became  specially  developed;  in  the  latter  the  mental 
powers  performed  the  extra  work  and  were  developed  accord- 
ingly. Thus  specialization  has  taken  place  because  it  has 
been  advantageous.  In  fact,  we  may  say,  to  paraphrase 
Spencer's  cosmological  formula,  that  the  whole  course  of  life 
development,  that  is,  education,  has  been  a  process  of  change 
from  that  which  is  relatively  simple,  homogeneous,  undifferen- 
tiated,  unspecialized,  to  that  which  is  complex,  heterogene- 
ous, and  specialized.  This  is  as  true  of  society  as  of  animal 
structure. 

"With  the  increase  in  degree  of  the  division  of  labor  among 
various  parts  of  the  body,  there  is  an  increase  in  definiteness  and 
extent  of  differentiation  of  structure.  Each  part  or  organ  of 
the  body  becomes  more  modified  and  better  fitted  to  perform 
its  own  special  function.  A  peculiar  structural  condition  of 
any  part  of  the  body,  or  of  the  whole  body  of  any  animal,  is  not 
to  be  looked  on  as  a  freak  of  nature,  or  as  a  wonder  or  marvel. 
Such  a  structure  has  a  significance  which  may  be  sought  for. 
The  unusual  structural  condition  is  associated  with  some  special 


20  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

habit  or  manner  of  performance  of  a  function.  Function  and 
structure  are  always  associated  in  nature,  and  should  always 
be  associated  in  our  study  of  nature."  1 

Necessity  for  exercise  in  a  particular  direction  has  either 
produced  variations  or  accentuated  them.  These  modifications 
have  been  preserved  through  heredity.  This  is  the  history  of 
evolution,  of  progress,  of  education.  While  each  individual 
tends  to  vary  in  some  direction  or  other,  heredity  tends  to  con- 
serve with  great  jealousy  everything  gained.  In  this  there  is 
not  complete  success,  for  we  find  in  some  cases  a  loss  of  function 
and  structure. 

Illustrations  of  Nature's  Adaptations. — Among  both  plants  and 
animals  it  is  easy  to  cite  a  sufficient  number  of  cases  to  demon- 
strate fully  that  the  processes  of  adjustment  to  environing  con- 
ditions are  continually  taking  place.  Not  only  are  new  species 
evolved  in  this  way,  but  organisms  selected  from  a  given  genera- 
tion and  placed  under  changed  conditions  become  very  materially 
different  from  the  specimens  that  remain  under  usual  conditions. 
For  example,  if  either  plants  or  animals  are  removed  from  a 
terrestrial  life  to  aquatic  conditions,  or  from  fresh  to  salt  water, 
and  succeed  in  adapting  themselves  to  the  new  conditions,  they 
undergo  changes  of  external  aspect,  internal  structure,  and  other 
modifications.  A  few  illustrations  are  subjoined  to  make  the 
point  clear.  De  Moor  says  2  the  leaves  of  the  water  Ranunculus 
with  laciniated  leaves  are  of  normal  structure  when  grown  on 
dry  land.  The  epidermis  is  furnished  with  stomata  and  the 
constituent  cells  contain  no  chlorophyll.  But  when  grown  in 
water  the  leaves  arc  much  longer,  have  no  stomata,  and  the  epi- 
dermic cells  are  full  of  chlorophyll.  Again,  upon  the  authority 
of  Goebel,  De  Moor  says  that  cacti  show  remarkable  adaptation 
to  varying  conditions.  The  Phyllocactus  when  grown  in  the 
light  has  a  smooth  stem,  but  when  grown  in  the  dark  it  becomes 
prismatic  and  thorny.  The  cactus  and  all  the  odd  desert  flora 
are  doubtless  the  result  of  ages  of  struggle  with  peculiar  climatic 
conditions.  The  cacti  and  each  one  of  the  other  peculiar 

1  Jordan,  Animals,  p.  77.  2  Evolution  by  Atrophy,  p.  26. 


ADAPTATION  OF  FUNCTIONS  21 

guardians  of  the  lonely  waste  had  an  ancestry  quite  unlike  the 
present  inhabitants.  The  edible  mussel  has  one  kind  of  shell 
if  grown  in  shallow  water,  another  if  grown  in  deep  water,  and 
yet  another  if  it  lives  in  salt  water.  Shells  vary  in  color  accord- 
ing to  the  latitude  and  the  depth  of  the  water.  We  know  that 
domestication  produces  changes  in  every  species.  It  is  seldom 
that  a  wild  species  when  kept  captive  will  breed.  Darwin  says: ' 
"Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  tame  an  animal,  and  few  things 
more  difficult  than  to  get  it  to  breed  freely  under  confinement." 
This  is  often  true  of  plants  as  well  as  animals.  The  ancestor 
of  the  horse  was  a  clumsy,  five-toed  animal  that  lived  in  swamps. 
But  through  a  process  of  adjustment  to  new  conditions  necessi- 
tating flight  as  a  means  of  preservation  it  lost  first  the  great  toe, 
then  the  fifth,  and  next  the  second  and  third,  and  now  only  one 
toe  ever  develops  to  functional  maturity.  The  others  assert 
themselves  in  embryonic  stages,  but  so  feebly  as  to  give  way 
entirely  to  the  single  toe,  the  only  one  which  could  now  be  of 
any  use.  The  cloven  hoofs  with  the  "dew-claws"  tell  the  tale 
of  a  process  that  did  not  continue  to  the  same  extent;  but  the 
record  of  adaptation  is  there,  plain  to  him  who  understands 
evolutionary  processes.  We  need  but  to  ask  a  "show  of  hands" 
to  secure  ample  corroboration  of  the  story  of  adaptation  to 
environment.  We  can  get  the  whole  series  from  the  fins  of  the 
fish,  the  hand  of  the  frog,  the  wing  of  a  bat,  the  arboreal  hand 
with  the  peculiar  thumb  of  the  ape,  clear  to  the  beautiful  hand 
of  man  with  its  infinite  potentialities. 

Adaptation  through  Artificial  Selection. — English  races  of  dogs, 
according  to  Darwin,2  degenerate  in  a  few  generations  and  en- 
tirely lose  their  peculiarities  of  form  and  mental  characters  which 
formerly  marked  them  off  from  all  other  breeds.  Eimer  showed,3 
as  early  as  1872,  through  his  study  of  the  variability  of  the  wall- 
lizard,  that  changes  took  place  so  rapidly  that  it  '  might  be  with 
equal  justice  described  as  species  or  variety,  so  much  does  it 
differ  from  the  original  form.  ...  An  instance  is  afforded  in 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  8.  y  Domestication,  vol.  I,  p.  37. 

3  Organic  Evolution,  p.  3. 


22  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

this  animal  of  undoubted  natural  race-production,  which  has 
evidently  occurred  in  a  relatively  short  period  of  time." 

It  has  been  demonstrated  that  plants  transplanted  from 
plains  to  mountainous  districts  soon  become  accustomed  to 
develop  in  a  shorter  period  of  time  and  at  a  lower  temperature. 
The  same  thing  is  shown  in  taking  grains  grown  in  southern 
latitudes  to  more  northern  ones.  They  rapidly  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  new  conditions,  maturing  in  a  considerably  shorter 
period  of  time.  Corn  (maize)  has  been  carried  farther  and 
farther  north,  and  now  large  crops  are  raised  in  latitudes  where 
it  was  formerly  deemed  absolutely  impossible  to  cultivate  it. 
That  the  changes  are  real  and  permanent  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  if  taken  to  the  former  habitat  they  have  to  become  read- 
justed to  that  locality.  Similar  changes  are  being  effected  in 
the  production  of  fruits.  The  great  differences  between  domes- 
ticated plants  and  animals  and  their  wild  ancestors  are  so  striking 
as  to  be  discernible  by  all.  These  changes  have  all  been  effected 
in  remarkably  short  periods  of  time.  Among  animals  the  psychic 
modifications  are  no  less  marked  than  the  structural.  Scientific 
agriculture,  horticulture,  and  animal  breeding  are  all  demon- 
strating beyond  doubt  that  new  varieties  and  species  can  be 
produced  at  will  and  in  incredibly  short  periods  of  time.  The 
development  of  these  new  varieties  and  species  is  due  to  use  and 
disuse.  Characters  which  give  advantageous  adaptations  are 
increasingly  exercised  and  consequently  developed;  those  which 
are  disadvantageous  fall  into  disuse  and  therefore  tend  to  atro- 
phy or  degenerate.  My  reply  to  an  anticipated  objection  that 
natural  selection  is  the  cause  of  all  variations  will  be  in  the 
words  of  Harris  in  summarizing  the  work  of  De  Vries  that  natural 
selection  may  explain  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but  it  cannot 
explain  the  arrival  of  the  fittest. 

New  Species  through  Adaptations. — De  Vries  maintains  that 
the  production  of  new  species  is  nothing  unusual.  He  also  con- 
tends that  the  process  of  development  of  new  species  is  not  so 
slow  as  to  elude  observation.  More  startling  still,  he  maintains 
that  sudden  mutations  resulting  in  new  species  are  the  natural 


ADAPTATION   OF  FUNCTIONS  23 

and  usual  processes.  His  whole  book,  Species  and  Varieties: 
Their  Origin  by  Mutation,  is  a  professed  attempt  "to  prove 
that  sudden  mutation  is  the  normal  way  in  which  nature  pro- 
duces new  species  and  varieties.  These  mutations  are  more 
readily  accessible  to  observation  and  experiment  than  the  slow 
and  gradual  changes  surmised  by  Wallace  and  his  followers, 
which  are  entirely  beyond  our  present  and  future  experience" 
(p.  30).  In  another  place  he  observes  that  "in  horticulture, 
new  varieties,  both  retrograde  and  ever  sporting,  are  known  to 
occur  almost  yearly." 

Variation  and  Specialization  in  Nature. — Species  and  individ- 
uals develop  in  special  ways  according  to  their  own  particular 
needs.  In  making  the  examination,  let  us  keep  in  mind  the 
pedagogical  question  whether  uniformity  among  individual  men 
is  a  prime  consideration,  or  whether  a  great  deal  of  variety  is 
not  a  law  of  evolution  and  progress. 

Oftentimes  different  animals  on  the  same  general  scale  both 
physically  and  mentally,  exhibit  very  different  characteristics  in 
some  direction  or  other.  Their  success  in  life  has  been  due  to 
the  possession  of  their  peculiar  development.  Variations  in 
function  and  structure  in  nature  came  about  through  the  neces- 
sity for  adaptation  to  conditions.  Food-getting,  self-protection, 
rivalry,  defence  of  young,  and  accommodation  to  surroundings 
include  most  of  the  causes  for  adaptation  in  nature.  A  few 
illustrations  will  be  given  to  show  how  special  modifications  are 
continually  taking  place.  The  native  English  sheep  have  de- 
veloped a  long  wool  to  protect  them  in  a  cool,  damp  climate. 
The  giraffe's  curious  long  neck  is  a  result  of  continued  high- 
reaching  for  food  in  a  country  where  this  was  to  be  found  mainly 
in  trees.  The  different  varieties  of  birds  each  have  bills  and 
claws  especially  adapted  to  their  methods  of  food-getting.  A 
stork  with  duck's  legs  and  a  hawk's  bill  would  have  a  sorry  time 
getting  food  under  natural  conditions,  as  would  an  eagle  with 
stork's  legs  and  crane's  bill.  Insect-eating  animals  have  peculiar 
structures  enabling  them  to  secure  food.  The  ant-eater  is  a 
good  example.  Insects'  mandibles  are  wonderful  instruments 


24  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

illustrating  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  The  curious  forms 
and  structures  of  fishes  are  interesting  illustrations  of  the  same 
relation.  Some  can  fly,  others  have  swords,  and  there  are  those 
with  spines  that  vanquish  enemies;  some  have  eyes  on  the  side 
of  the  head,  others  on  top,  and  still  others  are  blind.  The  great 
variety  of  habits  manifested  by  different  animals  have  all  been 
accumulated  through  long  practice  of  certain  activities  necessi- 
tated by  surroundings.  Bats  and  owls  are  nocturnal,  and  bears 
and  most  insects  hibernate  through  the  winter.  Some  animals 
are  solitary,  others  social.  The  opossum  has  learned  to  simu- 
late death,  and  the  partridge  practises  deception  in  feigning  a 
broken  wing  in  order  to  lead  enemies  away  from  her  brood. 
Through  adaptation  degeneration  frequently  occurs.  This  is 
true  of  cave  animals.  Certain  insects  that  inhabit  islands  have 
lost  their  wings  because  flying  insects  are  in  danger  of  being 
carried  out  to  sea.  Protective  coloration  and  mimicry  afford 
striking  examples  of  the  laws  of  adaptation.  "In  general," 
says  Jordan,1  "all  the  peculiarities  of  animal  structure  find  their 
explanation  in  some  need  of  adaptation."  2 

Human  Adaptations. — (a)  Anthropological.  We  need  scarcely 
more  than  mention  the  myriads  of  human  adaptations  that  have 
occurred,  some  of  them  through  the  necessities  imposed  by 
chance  conditions,  others,  as  in  the  higher  social  and  ethical 
life,  designedly  wrought  in  the  attempt  to  realize  higher  ideals 
which  we  have  formed.  The  historians  have  long  since  noted 
and  emphasized  the  far-reaching  importance  of  climate  and 
geographic  surroundings  upon  the  development  of  peoples.  The 
mountains  and  coast-lines  of  Greece,  the  seven  hills  of  Rome, 
the  arctic  winter  and  intolerable  nights  of  Greenland,  the  torrid 
sun  and  sweltering  heat  of  Africa,  and  the  fertile  fields  of  America 
have  formed  the  texts  for  many  a  chapter  designed  to  show  the 
effect  of  environment  in  shaping  destinies.  Reverse  the  sur- 

1  Animals,  p.  147. 

2  Those  who  wish  to  follow  out  the  varied  data  should  consult  works  like 
those  of  Darwin,  Huxley,  Cope,  Brooks,  and  Romanes.     The  section  on  Re- 
capitulation recounts  more  particularly  the  evidence  of  man's  line  of  development 
which  has  been  established  through  the  sciences  of  embryology  and  paleontology. 


ADAPTATION  OF  FUNCTIONS  25 

roundings  of  the  Eskimo  and  the  New  Englander,  the  Briton  and 
the  Abyssinian,  and  what  inversions  of  character  might  have 
ensued.  Indeed  we  may  say  that  the  chance  environment  sur- 
rounding one's  birthplace  to  a  large  extent  determines  whether 
one  is  to  be  a  dreamer  or  a  doer,  an  idler  or  a  producer,  a  savage 
or  a  progressive  citizen.  In  fact,  a  few  weeks  only  of  a  partic- 
ular environment  at  a  critical  time  frequently  decides  whether 
one  will  become  an  upright  citizen  or  a  perverted  sinner. 

As  will  be  shown  more  fully  in  the  discussion  of  heredity,  only 
slight  modifications  of  physical  and  mental  characters  can  be 
produced  in  a  single  generation.  Heredity  is  a  great  conserva- 
tive force.  In  sociology  natural  selection  plays  only  a  secondary 
r61e,  while  artificial  selection  is  the  dominant  factor.  The  real 
problem  of  higher  human  education  is  to  discover  a  desirable 
ideal  life  for  each  individual  and  then  to  shape  his  environment 
so  as  to  contribute  best  to  development  in  harmony  with  that 
ideal.  This  should  not  be  a  matter  of  chance,  but  a  work  de- 
manding the  brightest  intelligence  and  highest  wisdom. 

Human  Adaptations. — (b)  Biological.  The  first  weeks  of  life 
of  all  human  beings  and  their  entire  ante-natal  existence  offer 
a  close  parallelism  to  the  adaptations  accomplished  by  lower 
organisms.  The  conditions  of  existence  must  be  tolerably 
uniform  or  extinction  is  the  penalty.  That  the  babe  is  at  first 
powerless  to  acquire  any  great  range  of  activities  or  much 
dexterity  is  well  known.  Macrocephalous  and  other  idiotic 
children  always  remain  in  bondage  to  a  circumscribed  range  of 
life  and  are  powerless  to  initiate  new  things  or  to  acquire  them 
if  instructed.  It  will  readily  be  granted  that  it  is  a  long  stride 
between  education  of  this  sort  and  post-graduate  university 
education,  but  the  difference  is  one  of  degree.  The  processes 
are  similar. 

In  childhood,  and  in  fact  throughout  life,  the  main  adaptations, 
as  is  true  of  the  protozoans,  are  concerned  with  the  every-day 
problems  of  existence.  As  in  the  case  of  the  micro-organisms, 
the  human  being  learns  to  avoid  or  inhibit  that  which  is  harmful 
or  disadvantageous,  to  repeat  that  which  is  pleasurable  or  bene- 


26  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ficial.  Thus  many  activities  become  stereotyped  and  largely  a 
matter  of  routine.  Not  only  does  an  individual  follow  grooves 
which  have  been  established  by  experience — by  education — but 
the  same  is  true  of  the  race.  Instinct,  as  will  be  explained  more 
fully  later,  is  simply  a  race  habit,  or  the  standardized  results 
of  race  education.  The  individual  and  the  race  virtually  become 
"repeaters."  This  is  not  the  whole  of  education.  To  progress 
much  there  must  be  independence  of  thought,  initiative,  inhibi- 
tion, resistance,  deliberation,  voluntary  variation  from  stereo- 
typed action.  But  all  of  these  higher  depend  upon  the  lower, 
and,  as  will  be  shown,  are  even  more  efficient  when  the  lower  are 
best  developed.  In  fact,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  conserva- 
tion is  equally  as  important  in  life  as  are  variations.  It  is  even 
as  important  for  progress.  The  frog  which  climbs  out  of  the 
well  ever  so  fast  makes  no  progress  if  he  slips  back  with  equal 
rapidity  and  regularity. 

The  School-master  Should  Imitate  Nature. — It  is  a  part  of 
nature's  great  plan  to  fix  immediately  every  advantageous  ac- 
quisition. The  successful  school-master  must  again  consider 
her  ways  and  be  wise.  All  learning  must  be  put  into  some  vital 
relation  to  the  every-day  thoughts  and  actions  of  life,  otherwise 
the  child  is  ever  acquiring  but  never  conserving.  Nature  builds 
absolutely  sure  foundations  by  fixing  "for  keeps"  everything 
acquired  that  is  worth  while.  In  our  hot-house  educational 
methods  our  tendency  is  forever  to  sample  new  things  and  never 
grow  a  single  process  into  the  texture  of  muscles,  brains,  and 
minds.  At  the  close  of  such  an  education  the  individual  is  as 
limp  as  a  squash  vine — possesses  no  real  fibre  physically,  men- 
tally, or  morally.  This  is  especially  true  of  much  present-day 
moral  and  intellectual  education.  Intellectual  and  moral  truths 
are  learned,  not  to  be  put  into  effective  relations,  but  to  be  given 
a  mere  kaleidoscopic  exhibition  on  examination  day.  Obsolete 
arithmetic  problems  are  learned  for  the  examinations,  not  for 
iheir  every-day  value;  children  babble  a  catalogue  of  the  bones, 
but  fail  to  learn  and  practise  a  single,  real,  hygienic  principle  like 
deep  breathing  or  temperate  eating.  They  tattle  proverbs,  mum- 


ADAPTATION   OF  FUNCTIONS  27 

ble  words  of  morality,  sing  hymns — even  say  prayers — in  a  per- 
functory way  with  no  thought  of  the  application  to  their  own  lives. 
Such  teaching  cannot  produce  the  results  we  claim  for  education. 
Formal  educative  acquisitions  should  become  integrated  with 
every  thought,  every  feeling,  and  every  proposed  action  of  our 
every-day  existence  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  the  racial 
educational  experiences  have  become  integrated.  Otherwise  they 
disappear  like  the  dew  before  the  morning  sun,  and  there  persist 
only  the  oft-repeated,  manifoldly  related  impressions  and  proc- 
esses that  are  gained  through  the  school  of  experience.  Every 
impulse  is  a  resultant  of  thousands  of  experiences  repeated  in 
manifold  variations. 


CHAPTER  III 

DEVELOPMENT  AND  SPECIALIZATION  OF  THE  NER- 
VOUS   SYSTEM    AND    THE    SIGNIFICANCE 
FOR  EDUCATION 

Beginnings  of  Self-Activity  and  Sensitivity. — Among  inani- 
mate substances  like  the  rocks,  minerals,  water,  and  the  clod  of 
earth,  we  observe  no  evidences  of  sensitivity  or  of  active  response 
to  the  influences  of  environment.  To  be  sure,  chemical  changes 
take  place,  but  the  substances  are  apparently  inert  and  passive 
unless  brought  into  contact  with  other  substances  for  which  they 
have  affinities. 

But  in  the  plant  world  we  observe  a  very  definite  reaction  to 
certain  stimuli.  In  the  spring,  under  the  influence  of  heat, 
light,  and  moisture,  plants  put  forth  buds,  leaves,  and  shoots; 
the  sap  circulates,  and  they  increase  in  size,  extend  their  roots, 
develop  blossoms  and  finally  fruit.  Although  outside  conditions 
must  be  favorable,  yet  we  notice  that  the  plants  of  their  own 
energy  attack  the  surrounding  atmosphere  and  the  soil  and  ap- 
propriate what  is  necessary  for  their  growth.  So  great  is  the 
energy  put  forth  that  small  roots  work  their  way  through  large 
pieces  of  wood,  pierce  crevices  of  the  rocks,  and  sometimes  even 
rend  stone  walls.  Fruits  like  the  pumpkin,  when  harnessed,  will 
lift  hundreds  of  pounds,  and  delicate  plants  will  under  certain 
conditions  lift  many  times  their  own  weight.  Dr.  Harris  l 
writes:  "One  may  admit  that  the  environment  acts  on  the 
plant,  but  he  must  contend  for  the  essential  fact  that  the  plant 
reacts  on  its  environment,  meeting  and  modifying  external  influ- 
ences." That  plants  turn  toward  the  light  or  bend  in  certain 
ways  is  not  because  of  any  purposive  force  within  the  plant,  but 

1  Psychologic  Foundations  o}  Education,  p.  27. 
28 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    29 


merely  because  of  heliotropism  or  geotropism.  There  are  only 
a  few  cases  in  which  plants  seem  to  exhibit  sensitivity,  powers 
of  locomotion,  and  definite  reaction  in  securing  some  end.  The 
sensitive  plant  and  the  Venus  fly-trap  seem  to  respond  to  touch 
by  certain  movements.  In  spirogyra  the  process  of  conjugation 
seems  to  be  accompanied  by  purposive  movements  on  the  part  of 
the  plant  cell.  But  it  is  quite  possible  that  these  cases  are  also 
merely  tropisms  of  some  sort  brought  about  by  outside  forces. 

No  Nervous  System  in  Plants. — Although  plants  manifest  such 
definite  evidence  of  self-activity  and  even  crude  sensitivity  and 
power  of  response,  yet  there  is  no  evidence  of  that  wonderful 
mechanism — the  nervous  system.  Not  only  is  the  nervous  sys- 
tem lacking,  but  biologists  do  not  generally  concede  the  posses- 
sion of  nervous  tissue.  But  if  there  is  sensitivity  and  power  of 
response  even  in  the  slightest  degree,  does  this  not  suggest,  at 
any  rate,  some  substance  capable  of  receiving  stimuli  and  trans- 
mitting impulses? 

Homogeneity  in  Protozoans :  Educational  Suggestions. — Not 
even  all  animals  possess  a  system  of  nervous  mechanisms. 
Protozoans,  of  which  the  classi- 
cal little  amoeba  (see  Fig.  i)  is  a 
good  representative,  are  practi- 
cally undifTerentiated  in  struct- 
ure. The  amoeba  is  composed  of 
a  cell-wall  enclosing  a  body  of  al- 
most homogeneous  protoplasm. 
Occasionally  a  few  granules 
whose  structure  and  function 
are  unknown  are  present.  This 
little  animal  possesses  the  powers  of  digestion,  respiration,  a 
certain  crude  sensitivity,  and  locomotion.  In  a  certain  sense 
it  remembers,  imitates,  and  learns.  All  of  these  functions  are 
carried  on  by  means  of  the  single  undifferentiated  cell.  In 
other  words,  a  single  homogeneous  organ  performs  several 
functions,  performing  each  as  well  as  any  other,  no  one  in  a 
superior  manner,  but  all  most  crudely.  In  education  we  have 


FIG.  i. — Amasba  princeps,  x  150. 

The  same  animal  in  various  shapes. 
(From  Orton.) 


3o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

heard  much  of  "all-round"  training.  Verily,  here  is  an  example 
par  excellence  of  an  "all-round"  individual.  When  the  amoeba 
is  affected  by  a  stimulus — light,  for  example — it  is  not  necessary 
that  any  particular  portion  be  stimulated,  for  the  whole  body  is 
equally  sensitive.  When  it  reacts,  it  does  so  not  with  a  hand, 
a  foot,  a  lip,  a  tongue,  but  with  the  entire  body.  It  may  contract 
one  portion  of  its  body,  but  it  expands  in  another.  In  what 
direction  it  will  move,  or  what  part  of  its  body  will  move  most,  is 
unpredictable.  Just  as  it  has  no  eye  to  be  stimulated  by  light 
waves,  no  ear  to  be  affected  by  sound  waves,  no  special  organs 
of  touch  or  temperature,  it  does  not  react  with  a  definite  portion 
of  the  body  and  in  a  particular  direction.  A  man  feeling  too 
strong  a  light  would  move  his  chair,  pull  down  a  curtain,  turn 
away,  or  ask  some  one  to  change  the  conditions.  That  is,  he 
would  do  a  definite  thing  and  bring  special  organs  to  bear  in 
accomplishing  the  result.  He  would  co-ordinate  stimuli  with 
means  and  modes  of  reacting  and  accomplishing  definite  ends. 

Primitive  Nervous  Structure. — The  amoeba  possesses  no 
nervous  system.  Zoologists  have  usually  said  that  it  possesses 
no  nervous  substance.  But  its  sensitivity  seems  to  point  toward 
the  possession  of  something  akin  to  nervous  material.  The 
generalization  that  "there  is  no  psychosis  without  neurosis" 
assumes  that  every  sensitive  organism  must  possess  some 
nervous  substance  which  through  the  action  of  stimuli  gives 
rise  to  "neuroses,"  the  concomitants  of  "psychoses."  In  some 
respects  the  animal  possessing  sensitivity  is  different  from  the 
plant,  devoid  of  that  quality.  But  the  protozoans  possess  no 
system  of  nervous  structure.  Consequently,  when  the  amoeba 
is  affected  by  outside  stimuli  the  nervous  energy  generated  is 
diffused,  instead  of  being  confined  to  special  tracts.  Some  of  the 
higher  protozoans,  such  as  the  slipper  animalcule  (paramoecium) 
and  the  bell  animalcule  (vorticella),  are  somewhat  more  differ- 
entiated in  structure  and  in  function,  but  in  none  of  the  pro- 
tozoans do  we  find  anything  approaching  a  nervous  system. 

The  Elementary  Structure  and  Function  of  a  Nervous  System. 
—The  purpose  of  the  nervous  system  and  the  sense  organs  is 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    31 

to  enable  the  individual  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  outside  world 
through  stimulation  and  to  respond  in  some  manner  to  those  stim- 
ulations. The  sense  organs  are  in  part,  as  in  the  retina,  merely 
specialized  portions  of  the  nervous  tissue.  In  part  they  are 
specialized  portions  of  the  skin  so  sensitized  as  to  receive  certain 
stimuli  from  the  outside  world.  These  stimuli  are  transformed 
into  nervous  impulses  by  means  of  the  nervous  system.  These 
nervous  impulses  in  turn  become  the  antecedents  of  muscular 
activity  and  in  some  cases  the  concomitants  of  mental  processes. 


FIG.  2. — A  group  of  human  nerve  cells  drawn  to  scale,  X  200  diameters. 

A,  B,  C,  D,  F,  cell  bodies  and  the  beginnings  of  the  processes  ;  E,  cross  section  of 
a  large  nerve  fibre.  (Krom  Donaldson's  Growth  oj  the  Brain,  p.  142,  modified 
from  Waller's  Human  Physiology.) 

The  fundamental  elements  which  compose  the  nervous  sys- 
tem are  the  neurons  (Figs.  2,  3).  The  neurons  consist  of  a  cell 
body  with  short  branching  processes,  the  dendrites,  and  an  axis 
cylinder  or  axon.  Branching  off  from  the  axon  are  usually 
many  fibrils,  termed  collaterals.  Neurons  vary  greatly  in  size, 
from  the  minutest  microscopic  dimensions  to  three  feet  in 
length.  The  different  neurons  are  not  anatomically  continu- 
ous, but  communicate  by  mechanical  contact  only.  If  the 
neural  substance  of  the  nervous  system  could  be  entirely  freed 
from  the  connective  tissue  and  blood  vessels  and  be  much 
magnified,  it  would  present  a  distinctly  fibrous  or  fibtillar  ap- 
pearance, rather  than  the  jelly-like  appearance  so  familiar  in 


32  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

the  macroscopic  view.  This  fibrous  mass  comprises  many 
bundles  of  fibres  and  other  organized  pathways  for  the  dis- 
charge of  nervous  energy.  The  muscles  and  their  connections 
with  the  neurons  complete  the  specialized  equipment  whereby 
we  are  enabled  to  react  upon  our  environment. 

The  whole  arrangement  is  admirably  adapted  for  the  special 
functions  of  a  nervous  system,  viz.,  the  liberation  of  nervous 


FIG.  3. 

A-D,  showing  the  phylogenetic  development  of  mature  cerebral  cells  in  a  series  of  ver- 
tebrates :  a-e,  the  ontogenctic  development  of  growing  cerebral  cells  in  a  typical 
mammal.  A,  frog;  B,  lizard ;  C,  rat;  D,  man;  a,  neuroblast  without  dendrqns ; 
4,  c,  developing  dendrons ;  d  and  e,  appearance  of  collaterals.  (From  Donaldson, 
op.  cit.,  p.  146 ;  from  S.  Ram6n  y  Cajal.) 

energy  and  the  conduction  of  nervous  impulses.  To  live  a  com- 
plex life,  to  be  highly  educated,  multitudes  of  co-ordinations  must 
be  established  between  stimuli  and  reactions.  This  function  the 
nervous  system  is  wonderfully  fitted  to  fulfil.  Without  some 
such  mechanism,  complex  adjustments  would  be  impossible. 

The  Reflex  Arc. — The  simplest  sensory-neuro-muscular  mech- 
anism enabling  an  animal  to  gain  definite  impressions  of  the 
external  world  and  to  react  in  a  somewhat  definite  manner,  is 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    33 


Muscle  I 


Anterior 
Root 


End  Organ 


FIG.  4. — Schematic  representation  of 
the  reflex  arc. 


the  reflex  arc.  This  consists  of  (i)  a  specially  sensitized  surface 
or  end  organ,  (2)  a  sensory  neuron  connected  with  the  end  organ, 
(3)  a  motor  neuron,  and  (4)  a  muscle  connected  with  the  motor 
neuron.1  The  accompanying  diagram  (Fig.  4)  represents  sche- 
matically the  simplest  reflex 
arc  in  the  human  spinal 
cord. 

Beginnings  of  Differenti- 
ation and  Organization.— 
Among  the  radiata,  includ- 
ing the  echimoderms  and 
ccelenterates,  we  observe 
much  more  specialization  in 
general  structure,  and  also 
the  beginnings  of  a  quite 

different  nervous  organization.     The  starfish  may  be  taken  as 
an  example  (see  Fig.  5).     There  is  a  ganglion  at  the  base  of 
each  radiating  arm,  connected  with  the  cesophageal  ring.    A 
branch  extends  from  each  ganglion  along  each  arm.    The  star- 
fish possessing  the  beginnings  of  a 
nervous    system,  when   stimulated, 
can  react  definitely  with  a  partic- 
ular  portion   of    the  body.      Some 
recent  experiments  upon  the  starfish 
show  that  it  can  even  be  trained  to 
move    a    particular    ray    upon    the 
application  of  a  particular  stimulus. 
Nervous  energy  is  directed  along  a 
particular  channel  and  there  is  co- 
ordination of  means  and  ends.    This 
relation  is  only  possible  with  a  ner- 
vous system.    The  brain  is  the  organ 
par  excellence  for  co-ordinating  functions.    The  medusae  possess 
a  radiate  structure  similar  to  the  starfishes,  but  no  approach 
toward  a  central  nervous  organization.     They  possess  several 
1  Sec  Howcll's  Text-Book  oj  Physiology,  p.  143. 


FIG.    5. — Nervous  system  of 
a  starfish. 

r,  nervous  ring  around  mouth;  n,  ra- 
dial nerves  to  each  arm,  ending  in 
the  eye.  (From  Le  Conte.) 


34 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


nerve  cords,  but  they  do  not  meet  one  another  in  a  common 
centre  of  radiation.  "It  is  difficult  to  see,"  writes  Le  Conte, 
"how  such  an  animal  can  have  a  common  consciousness," 
meaning  thereby  that  co-ordinated  action  of  all  parts  toward 
a  common  end  could  not  be  effected. 

The  mollusca  present  an  increasingly  com- 
plex organization  in  general  and  more  varied 
and  definite  functions,  and  we  find  here  a 
nervous  system  of  increasing  complexity. 
New  parts  requiring  to  be  moved  are  to  be 
found.  This  necessitates  new  ganglionic 
centres.  In  the  acephalous  mollusca,  typi- 
fied by  the  clam  and  the  oyster  (Figs.  6,  7), 
although  there  is  no  well-defined  head,  yet 
one  part  is  distinctly  the  anterior  portion 
and  another  the  posterior.  Corresponding  to 
this  distinct  advance 
over  the  radiates, 
there  are  two  ante- 
rior ganglia  on  each 
side  of  the  mouth. 
These  are  connected 
and  also  communi- 
cate with  the  posteri- 
or ganglion  by  means  of  two  long  lateral 
nerve  fibres.  In  some  cases,  as  in  the 
clam,  there  is  a  ganglion  in  the  organs  FlG-  7>~T Xcrvous  system 

of  an  oyster. 

of  locomotion,  called  the  pedal  ganglion.    c,  cephalic  ganglion:  v.  visceral 

rTM  i       /          -i  T-         o\          ganglion.    (After  Le  Conte.) 

1  he  gasteropods  (snails,  etc.,  rig.  8) 

and  the  cephalopods  (cuttle-fish,  squids,  etc.)  possess  in  addition 
distinct  cephalic  ganglia.  These  classes  of  animals  possess 
much  more  perfect  organs  of  locomotion  and  also  have  some 
well-developed  sense  organs,  especially  eyes.  The  articulates, 
including  the  worms,  insects,  etc.,  have  a  nervous  system  pecu- 
liarly adapted  to  their  general  structure  and  their  activities. 
The  locomotor  apparatus  is  highly  developed  and  the  nervous 


FIG.  6. — Nervous  sys- 
tem of  a  clam. 

eg,  cephalic  ganglion:  pg, 
pedal  ganglion;  rg,  visce- 
ral ganglion.  (From  Le 
Conte.) 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    35 


mechanism  is  largely  subservient  to  this  function.  In  general 
there  is  a  chain  of  ganglia,  one  double  ganglion  for  each  seg- 
ment. Branching  off  from  this  ganglion 
are  small  thread-like  nerves.  There  is 
definite  cephalization,  but  doubtless  the 
cephalic  ganglia  may  be  regarded  mainly 
as  optic  ganglia,  for  the  eye  is  well  devel- 
oped in  large  numbers  of  the  series.  They  e- 
also  control  the  special  organs  of  touch, 
the  antennae.  In  addition  these  lobes  seem 
to  be  the  seat  of  the  other  senses,  which 
are  beginning  to  make  their  appearance. 
Nervous  and  Mental  Correlations. — 
Among  the  higher  articulates,  the  arthro- 
poda,  wrhich  comprise  the  Crustacea  (Fig. 
9),  arachnida,  myriapods,  spiders,  and 
insects,  we  find  examples  of  a  high  degree 
of  intelligence.  Ants,  bees,  and  wasps, 
for  example,  through  the  entertaining  ac- 
counts of  their  great  sagacity  by  Lubbock  ' 
and  Romanes,  have  become  classical  ani-  c>  cephaiic  ganglion;  «,  oeso- 

-i-1-.ii  i  i  i  ,1  •  phageal  ganglion.  (From  Le 

mals.  Peckham  has  also  shown  that  spi-  £0nte.) 
ders  are  endowed  with  intellectual  powers 
far  in  advance  of  what  is  generally  known  of  them.  The  senses 
of  sight  and  touch  are  exceedingly  well  developed,  and  in  many 
the  sense  of  smell.  Ants  are  said  to  track  each  other,  like  dogs, 
by  the  scent.  They  display  considerable  power  of  memory  in 
the  way  they  recognize  friends  long  separated,  the  way  they  find 
their  homes  after  long  absences,  and  in  the  way  they  learn  to 
profit  by  experience.  Lubbock  ascribes  to  them  the  emotions 
of  sympathy  and  affection  and  speaks  of  their  valor,  rapacity, 
and  pugnacity.  They  are  known  to  keep  slaves,  to  have  cows 
or  aphides;  they  are  able  to  communicate  their  ideas  to  each 
other,  and  are  said  to  be  given  a  course  of  education.  Romanes 
writes:  "It  is  led  about  the  nest,  and  trained  to  a  knowledge  of 
domestic  duties,  especially  in  the  case  of  the  larvae.  Later  on 


system 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


the  young  are  taught  to  distinguish  between  friends  and  foes. 

When  an  ant's  nest  is  attacked  by  foreign  ants,  the  young  ones 
never  join  in  the  fight,  but  confine  them- 
selves to  removing  the  pupae."  This,  he 
claims,  has  been  shown  by  Forel  and 
Mott  to  be  instinctive.1  They  have  their 
wars,  are  said  to  have  play  periods,  in- 
dulging in  games  as  well  as  in  work,  and 
they  have  harvest  times. 

In  the  articulated  series  of  animals  the 
nervous  development  shows  a  nice  adjust- 
ment between  the  needs  and  habits  of  the 
animals  and  nervous  structure.  Their 
mode  of  life  demands  a  highly  developed 
locomotor  apparatus  and  we  notice  the 
separate  ganglion  for  each  segment,  which 
in  turn  usually  supports  a  pair  of  legs  or 
some  special  means  of  locomotion.  Thus 
each  segment  is  practically  independent, 


FIG.  9. — Nervous  system 


though  controlled  in   a  general  way  by 


of  a  crayfish. 

c,  cephalic   ganglion;    o,  optic      the   CCphalic   ganglia, 
nerve;    oe,  cesophageal  gan- 

giion.    sg,  spinal  ganglia.        According  to  Carpenter  practically  the 

(From  Le   Conte.)  * 

whole  existence  of  invertebrated  animals 

is  reflex  and  instinctive.  The  arrangement  of  their  nervous  sys- 
tems is  well  adapted  to  this.  If  we  make  exception  of  ants, 
bees,  and  wasps,  and  possibly  some  spiders,  doubtless  his  char- 
acterization is  correct.  They  learn  very  little  by  individual  ex- 
perience. Knowing  the  life  history  of  the  species,  we  may 
predict  with  much  certainty  the  actions  of  the  individual. 

Vertebrate  Nervous  Systems. — When  we  pass  to  the  vertebrates 
we  find  a  much  more  highly  specialized  and  real  system  of  ner- 
vous organization.  All  vertebrates  possess  an  axial  and  a  gan- 
glionic  system.  The  axial  system  consists  of  a  continuous  tract 
of  gray  matter  surrounded  by  white  matter  and  lies  along  the 
dorsal  side  of  the  body.  This  tubular  mass  is  enlarged  at  the 

1  Animal  Intelligence,  p.  59. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    37 


anterior  end  into  a  brain  and  gives  off  varying  numbers  of  pairs 
of  nerves  along  the  whole  length.1  These  numbers  vary  from 
about  twenty  in  frogs,  and  forty-three  in  man,  to 
a  couple  of  hundred  in  sawfishes.  In  the  am- 
phioxus,  or  lancelet,  which  is  the  lowest  verte- 
brate, there  is  nothing  that  can  really  be  called 
a  brain.  We  have  here  the  first  example  of 
an  axial  tube,  the  most  fundamental  part  of  the 
nervous  system  of  vertebrates.  The  amphi- 
oxus  possesses  no  eyes,  no  ears,  no  nose,  and 
consequently  no  optic,  auditory,  or  olfactory 
lobes.  There  is  simply  a  fringe  of  filaments 
about  the  mouth,  which  may  serve  as  rudi- 
mentary senses.  The  spinal  cord  gives  off  no 
branches.  In  fact,  in  the  amphioxus  and  the 
lamprey,  the  lowest  of  fishes,  the  spinal  cord  is 
practically  the  entire  nervous  structure.  From 
this  fundamental  simple  structure  let  us  note 
the  gradual  evolution  of  the  highly  complex 
nervous  structure  of  the  animals  which  per- 
form the  highest  and  most  complex  actions. 

The  nervous  system  of  vertebrates  comprises 
the  brain,  spinal  cord,  and  the  nerves.  The 
brain  and  the  spinal  cord  make  up  what  is 
usually  termed  the  central  nervous  system,  and 
all  the  rest,  excepting  the  sympathetic  system, 
is  called  the  peripheral  system.  The  nervous  Fl°-  i°-  — Human 

brain,  spinal  cord, 

system  is  the  most  complex  and  highly  special-    and  parts  of  radi- 
ized  system  of  the  entire  anatomy.     It  is  com-    ating  ncrves- 

(From  Orton.) 

posed  of  two  kinds  of  neural  substances,  known 
from  their  color  as  the  white  and  the  gray  matter.  In  the  brain 
the  gray  matter  is  situated  chiefly  on  the  outside  of  the  brain 
structure,  forming  the  cortex;  while  in  the  spinal  cord  the 
white  substance  is  on  the  outside,  and  the  gray  matter  forms 
the  central  core. 

1  In  all  species  except  the  very  lowest. 


38  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

With  the  development  of  the  organs  of  special  sense  we  find 
a  corresponding  increase  in  the  size  of  the  cephalic  lobes,  and 
the  nervous  system  becomes  correspondingly  complex  and  dif- 
ferentiated. In  fact,  in  the  lower  vertebrates  the  brain  is 
largely  an  aggregation  of  centres  or  lobes  controlling  special 
sense  organs.  These  centres  are  differentiations  of  the  original 


Side  view. 


Top  view. 


FIG.  ii. — Brain  of  fish.1 


spinal  axis  and  not  specializations  of  an  originally  undiffcr- 
entiated  brain.  The  cerebral  portions  of  the  brains  of  man  and 
other  higher  adult  mammals  so  overgrow  and  obscure  the  orig- 
inal lobes  that  the  order  of  evolution  is  not  always  appreciated. 
All  fishes  except  the  very  lowest  possess  a  quite  highly  special- 
ized brain  (Fig.  u).  The  cerebellum  and  the  cerebrum  are  in 


Side  view. 


Top  view. 


FIG.  12. — Brain  of  reptile. 


evidence.  Still,  in  fishes,  the  brain  averages  only  about  one- 
twentieth  as  large  as  it  does  in  man.  Olfactory  lobes  are  defi- 
nite, but  the  dominant  features  are  the  optic  lobes.  Sight 
seems  to  be  the  most  important  factor  in  the  search  for  food 
and  eluding  pursuit  of  enemies.  The  sense  of  smell  docs  not 
seem  to  be  very  prominent  and  there  is  little  evidence  of  hear- 
ing in  the  true  sense. 

The  cerebrum  first  makes  its  appearance  as  the  largest  lobe 
in  the  brains  of  reptiles  (Fig.  1 2) .     Still,  all  the  lobes  of  the  brain 

'In  figures  11  — 16  observe  the   following:    of,  olfactory  lobe;   ol,  optic   lone; 
cr,  cerebrum;   cb,  cerebellum;   m,  medulla.     (From  Lc  Conte — except  Fig.  15.) 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    39 

are  distinct  and  visible  and  the  brain  is  not  a  homogeneous  mass, 
but  rather  a  succession  of  distinct  lobes.  The  optic  lobe  is 
rather  smaller  than  in  fishes.  The  cerebellum  is  small  and 
comports  well  with  the  general  sluggishness  of  the  animals. 
The  medulla,  the  cerebral  and  cerebellar  lobes,  are  exceedingly 
important  additions,  inasmuch  as  they  seem  to  be  the  chief 


Side  view. 


Top  view. 


FIG.  13.- — Brain  of  bird. 

organs  for  the  co-ordination  of  movements  which  make  complex 
associations  possible.  Even  the  most  awkward  and  most  loath- 
some reptiles  probably  display  more  intelligence  than  fishes. 

The  nervous  systems  of  birds  present  a  considerable  advance 
over  those  of  the  reptiles  (see  Fig.  13).  The  brain  as  a  whole  is 
considerably  greater  in  proportion  to  the  weight  of  the  body,  and 


Side  view. 


Top  view. 


FIG.  14. — Brain  of  mammal.     (Cat.) 

also  in  proportion  to  the  weight  of  the  spinal  cord.  The  cerebral 
hemispheres  are  greatly  increased  in  size  and  present  some  evi- 
dences of  convolutions — the  first  to  be  met  with  in  the  animal 
series.  In  the  main,  however,  they  are  still  smooth,  as  in  fishes 
and  amphibians.  The  olfactory  lobes  are  not  highly  developed 
and,  like  the  optic  lobes,  are  largely  covered  by  the  cerebrum. 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


"The  cerebellum,"  says  Carpenter,  "  is  of  large  size  in  conformity 
with  the  active  and  varied  muscular  movements  performed  by 
animals  of  this  class;  but  it  consists  chiefly  of  the  central  lobe, 
with  little  appearance  of  lateral  hemispheres." 

The  various  parts  of  the  brain  are  no  longer  in  serial  order 
and  a  continuation  of  the  spinal  cord,  but  the  brain  is  more  of 
a  homogeneous  aggregation  and  the  lobes  seem  more  important 
than  the  stem. 

When  we  come  to  mammals,  we  find  many  distinct  advances 
in  organization  over  any  previously  met.  Not  only  do  mammals 


Side  view. 


Top  view. 


FIG.  15. — Brain  of  man. 

as  a  class  show  higher  development,  but  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest  mammalia  there  are  also  great  strides.  The  differences 
are  not  only  external  but  dissection  reveals  many  advances  in 
inner  organization.  The  most  obvious  variation  is  in  the  ex- 
traordinary development  of  the  cerebral  lobes  in  proportion  to 
the  rest  of  the  brain  and  the  entire  nervous  system  (see  Figs. 
14,  15,  16).  In  most  of  the  mammalia  these  overgrow  the  brain- 
stem  and  the  sensorial  lobes  so  completely  as  to  obscure  them 
from  view  in  the  external  examination,  especially  in  lateral  or  a 
top  view.  In  examining  the  brain  of  a  higher  mammal  the  nov- 
ice would  scarcely  suspect  that  all  the  lobes  were  out-growths 
from  the  brain-stem.  He  would  be  apt  to  regard  the  brain  as 
a  unit  and  the  spinal  cord  as  an  ofTshoot. 

1  Mental  Physiology,  p.  79. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    41 


The  cerebellum  in  this  series  attains  greater  and  greater  im- 
portance. One  other  very  important  difference  remains  to  be 
noted.  All  animals  below  mammals  have  practically  smooth 
brains.  The  mammalia  possess  convoluted  brains  and  the 
convolutions  in  general  increase  in  number  and  complexity  as 
we  pass  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  within  this  order.  Man's 
brain  possesses  the  most  highly  convoluted  structure  of  all. 

Le  Conte's  diagram  (Fig. 
16),  showing  the  compara- 
tive development  of  the 
whole  range  of  vertebrate 
brains,  is  very  striking  and 
extremely  suggestive.  The 
diagram  not  only  shows  the 
comparative  sizes  of  the 
different  brains  as  a  whole, 
but  also  sets  out  in  a  very 
telling  manner  the  relative 
proportions  of  the  different 
lobes.  It  also  illustrates 


Note  the   variation   in   the  cerebral  lobes.     (After 
Le  Conte.) 


FIG.  16. — Diagram  showing  comparison 
of  the  different  lobes  of  the  brain  in  ih;: 
ascending  series  of  vertebrates. 

the  relation  of   the   lobes 

to  the  original  brain-stem. 

Have  we  not  in  this  diagram  a  very  forceful  suggestion  of  the 

entire  history  of  adaptation  and  education? 

Comparisons  Summarized. — In  this  very  brief  sketch  of  the 
comparative  structure  of  the  nervous  system  we  have  found 
several  important  differences  in  the  various  orders  of  life.  The 
same  kinds  of  differences  are  also  distinguishable  between  the 
lower  and  the  upper  species  of  the  same  order,  (i)  There  are 
differences  in  the  amount  of  nervous  matter  possessed.  There 
are  all  gradations  from  the  amoeba,  practically  nerveless,  to  man 
with  a  brain  weighing  approximately  four  pounds,  besides  an  in- 
tricate system  of  nerves,  fibres,  and  ganglia.  (2)  There  are  varia- 
tions in  the  proportionate  weights  of  brain  and  the  entire  nervous 
system.  (3)  There  are  differences  in  the  amount  of  specializa- 
tion. (4)  In  the  ascending  scale  of  life  the  cerebral  lobes  come 


42  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

to  be  more  and  more  prominent  (see  Fig.  16).  (5)  The  convolu- 
tions, in  general,  are  more  numerous  and  deeper  in  the  higher 
forms  of  life.  (6)  The  degrees  of  specialization  of  the  brain 
and  nervous  system  correspond  very  closely  with  the  different 
degrees  of  mental  life.  (7)  There  is  a  close  parallelism  between 
the  zoological  scale  and  the  psychological  scale. 

Localization  of  Functions. — Not  only  is  the  vertebrate  nervous 
system  divided  into  specialized  portions,  as  the  brain,  the  spinal 


FIG.  17. — Human  brain  from  under  side. 

/,  olfactory  bulbs,    //,  optic  commissure    111  to  Xll,  cranial  nerves. 
(Drawn  by  Call.) 

cord,  and  the  nerves,  but  each  of  these  parts  is  composed  of 
still  further  differentiated  tissues  possessing  particular  functions. 
There  are  sensory  and  motor  nerves,  various  tracts  in  the  spinal 
cord;  and  the  brain,  which  is  a  marvel  of  specialization,  is  itself 
composed  of  many  lobes  and  areas  each  presiding  over  a  specific 
function.  Even  the  large  divisions  of  the  brain,  the  medulla, 
the  cerebellum,  and  the  cerebrum,  are  highly  specialized.  The 
control  of  special  functions  by  certain  specialized  areas  of  the 
brain  is  termed  localization  of  function.  Many  of  the  more 
obvious  functions  have  been  very  definitely  localized,  others  are 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    43 

indefinite  and  under  controversy,  while  in  still  other  cases  it  is 
impossible  to  determine  the  specific  functions  of  a  given  area,  or 
conversely,  to  locate  the  area  controlling  a  given  function.  It  is 
quite  probable  that  all  parts  of  the  nervous  system  may  perform 
a  variety  of  general  functions  in  addition  to  the  specific  ones. 
Localized  Functions  in  Human  Brain. — Man's  central  nervous 
system  is  estimated  to  have  at  least  three  billion  nerve  cells. 
Each  one  of  these  bodies  is  an  entity,  in  a  sense  as  separate  and 
distinct  and  as  simple,  as  a  single  amceba,  yet  all  are  united  by 
living  relations  into  a  wonderful  system.  Although  the  organs 
work  together  as  a  unity,  yet  each  has  a  special  function  to  per- 
form for  the  benefit  of  the  whole.  Thus  each  works  with  and 
for  all,  and  all  work  with  and  for  each.  The  nervous  system  is 
divided  into  the  brain,  the  spinal  cord,  and  the  nerve  fibres,  and 
the  brain  in  turn  is  subdivided  into  parts  having  special  functions 
to  perform.  Briefly  stated,  the  main  functions  of  the  several 
parts  are  as  follows : * 

I.  The  medulla  oblong  ita  controls   (i)   the  centres  funda- 
mental to  life  processes,  such  as  (a)  respiratory,   (b)   cardio- 
motor,   (c)   cardio-inhibitory,   (d)   vaso-motor;    (2)   the  centres 
concerned   with   alimentation,    including    (a)    mastication,    (b) 
deglutition,  (c)  vomiting,  (d)  sucking;   (3)  the  centres  controlling 
the  eye,  including  (a)  winking,  (6)  dilatation  of  the  pupil;    (4) 
the  centres  controlling  secretions,  including  (a)   salivary,   (b) 
lachrymal,  (c)  perspiration. 

II.  The  cerebellum  contains  centres  especially  connected  with 
(a)  emotional  life,  and  (b)  centres  for  co-ordination  of  move- 
ments. 

III.  The  cerebrum  contains  (i)  the  hemispheres,  which  are 
primarily  centres  controlling  psychical  processes,  (2)  the  basal 
ganglia,  chief  of  which  is  the  optic  thalamus  connected  with  the 
sense  of  sight,   (3)   the  corpora  quadrigemina  connected  with 
sight,  and  (4)  the  internal  and  external  capsules,  the  former  of 
which  is  associated  with  both  sensory  and  motor  processes. 
The  functions  of  the  latter  are  not  well  known.     The  hemi- 

1  Whitaker,  Anatomy  0}  the  Brain  and  Spinal  Cord,  p.  156. 


44 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


spheres  contain  several  well-marked  areas,  (a)  the  centre  for  or 
connected  with  sight  occupying  the  occipital  lobes  and  the 
angular  gyrus;  (6)  the  centre  associated  with  hearing  situated  in 
the  temporal-sphenoidal  lobe;  (c)  the  centres  controlling  taste 
and  smell  situated  in  the  temporal  lobe  but  within  the  brain  and 
seen  only  in  a  median  section;  (d)  the  speech  centre  in  the  left 
inferior  frontal  convolution  (in  left-handed  persons  this  centre 
is  on  the  right  side) ;  (e)  the  motor  centres  located  in  the  region 


FIG.  18. — Lateral  surface  of  the  human  brain,  showing  certain  localized  areas 
(Drawn  by  Call.) 

of  the  ascending  frontal  and  parietal  convolutions,  adjacent  to 
the  fissures  of  Rolando  and  Sylvius. 

Means  of  Determining  Localization. — The  functions  of  the 
specialized  areas  of  the  brain  have  been  determined  in  two  ways. 
Disturbances  of  function  have  been  observed  during  the  life  of 
the  individual  and  post-mortem  examinations  have  revealed  in- 
juries or  disease  in  certain  portions  of  the  brain.  When  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  cases  have  been  observed  showing  the  same  facts 
of  functional  derangement  and  anatomical  disease  or  lesion,  rea- 
sonable certainty  of  the  relation  may  be  assumed.  But  there  is 
another  method  of  discovering  and  testing  these  facts  and  rela- 
tions. By  stimulating  a  given  portion  of  the  brain  when  exposed  by 
accident  or  vivisection,  muscular  reactions  are  occasioned  and  the 
direct  relation  may  be  easily  discovered.  Many  purposive  experi- 
ments have  been  performed  and  much  valuable  evidence  acquired 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    45 

If  the  brains  of  dogs  or  monkeys,  or  other  animals,  are  stimu- 
lated electrically,  well-defined  movements  are  produced  in  some 
part  of  the  body;  for  example,  in  the  face,  tail,  fore-leg,  hind-leg, 
according  to  the  portion  of  the  brain  stimulated.  Moreover,  the 
movements  produced  are  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  body.  All 
experiments  confirm  the  belief  that  each  hemisphere  of  the 
brain  controls  functions  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  body.  The 
crossing  of  nerves  in  the  medulla  indicates  the  same  fact. 

If  a  portion  of  the  brain  is  excised  or  destroyed,  the  correspond- 
ing functions  will  be  inhibited  or  destroyed.  Paralysis  of  various 


FIG.  19. — Mesial  surface  of  the  human  brain,  showing  several  localized  areas. 

(Drawn  by  Call.) 

organs  results  from  disturbance  of  certain  portions  of  the  nervous 
system.  The  disturbance  may  be  caused  by  pressure  or  de- 
generation. In  many  cases  caused  by  pressure,  physicians  are 
able  to  diagnose  accurately  and  afford  relief  by  cutting  into  the 
skull  and  relieving  the  pressure.  Trephining  to  relieve  paraly- 
sis is  now  very  common.  Halleck  cites  two  cases.  The  first 
was  that  of  an  epileptic  patient  in  whom  all  the  preliminary 
twitchings  began  in  the  left  shoulder.  "The  surgeons  cut  a 
circular  hole  immediately  over  the  shoulder  centre.  Beneath 
the  incision  they  found  a  small  tumor,  which  they  removed.'' 
The  second  case  was  that  of  a  sewing-girl  in  whom  all  the  pre- 


46  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

liminary  convulsions  began  in  the  right  thumb.  "The  surgeons 
cut  through  the  skull  directly  over  the  motor  centre  for  the  hand. 
Then  they  stimulated  the  brain  cortex  until  they  found  a  surface 
where  the  thumb  alone  was  flexed.  It  was  necessary  to  deter- 
mine this  point  accurately,  for  if  the  brain  beyond  this  was 
injured,  the  hand  and  entire  arm  would  be  paralyzed.  .  .  . 
The  surgeons  succeeded  in  removing  the  thumb  centre  alone, 
and,  as  a  result  of  the  operation,  her  epileptic  attacks  were  fewer 
and  milder  in  number.  She  also  had  the  use  of  her  hand."  l 

Of  the  wonderful  accuracy  and  progress  in  localizing  brain 
areas,  Dr.  Keen  wrote:2  "When  I  say  that  the  existence  of  a 
tumor  about  the  size  of  the  end  of  the  forefinger  can  be  diagnosti- 
cated, and  that  before  touching  the  head  it  should  be  said  that 
it  was  a  small  tumor,  that  it  did  not  lie  on  the  surface  of  the  brain, 
but  a  little  underneath  it,  that  it  lay  partly  under  the  centre 
for  the  face  and  partly  under  that  for  the  arm  in  the  left  side  of 
the  brain,  and  that  the  man  was  operated  on,  and  the  tumor 
found  exactly  where  it  was  believed  to  be,  with  perfect  recovery 
of  the  patient,  it  is  something  which  ten  years  ago  would  have 
been  deemed  the  art  of  a  magician  rather  than  the  cold  precision 
of  science." 

Localization  of  Brain  Not  Exceptional. — There  is  nothing 
strange  in  the  fact  of  localization  of  function  in  the  brain, 
although  some  people  are  incredulous  concerning  it.  No  one 
regards  it  as  strange  that  the  body  is  divided  into  head,  trunk, 
arms,  legs,  hands,  heart,  liver,  and  spleen,  each  subserving  a 
specific  function  which  no  other  organ  can  perform.  It  is 
accepted  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  eye  cannot  hear,  the  ear 
see,  or  the  hand  taste.  Even  the  division  of  the  nervous  system 
into  brain  and  nerves  excites  no  comment.  But  as  soon  as 
specialization  of  function  in  the  various  portions  of  the  brain 
is  mentioned,  doubts  begin  to  arise.  Of  course,  the  different 
parts  are  related — sometimes  very  closely  indeed.  So  also  are 
the  ear  and  the  oesophagus,  both  having  arisen  from  the  same 

1  Education  oj  the  Central  Nervous  System,  p.  15. 
*  Vivisection  and  Brain  Surgery. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    47 


FIG.  20.- — Localized  areas  of  the  brain, 
showing  association  fibres. 

(After  Starr,  from  Donaldson's  Growth  o]  the  Brain, 
P-  267.) 


original  tissue.  The  linings  of  the  stomach  and  the  outer  skin 
of  the  body  are  the  same  in  origin.  Traced  to  their  origins  we 
find  that  the  brain,  muscles,  bones,  skin,  hair,  and  in  fact  all 

the  varied  tissues  of  the  - 

body  were  derived  from 
common  ancestral  cells. 
A  given  kind  of  food  may 
be  taken  by  one  individ- 
ual and  simply  build  up 
bone  and  muscle,  while 
taken  by  another  it  may  f. 

serve  to  develop  brain 
and  furnish  the  physio- 
logical basis  for  evolving 
idealistic  philosophy  or 
writing  poetry.  A  dog  and  a  man  may  subsist  on  an  identical 
quality  and  quantity  of  food,  but  how  different  the  resultants! 

The  facts  revealed  by  an  examination  of  the  brain  of  Laura 
Bridgman  were  very  significant.  She  was  in  possession  of  all 
her  senses  until  three  years  old,  when  scarlet  fever  deprived 
her  of  the  sight  of  the  left  eye.  She  could  see  a  little  with  her 
right  eye  until  eight,  when  she  became  entirely  blind.  From 
three  years  of  age  she  was  stone-deaf.  Consequently  she  was 
devoid  of  experiences  to  awaken  the  areas  of  sight  and  hearing. 
It  was  found  that  those  areas  of  the  brain  were  much  less  well 
developed  than  the  corresponding  areas  of  normal  brains  or 
the  other  areas  of  her  own  brain.  Dr.  Donaldson,  who  made 
the  examination  of  the  brain  with  such  minute  care,  said:  "In 
this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  those  parts  of  the 
cortex  which,  according  to  the  current  view,  were  to  be  associ- 
ated with  the  defective  organs,  were  also  particularly  thin. 
The  cause  of  this  thinness  was  found  to  be  due,  at  least  in 
part,  to  the  small  size  of  the  nerve  cells  there  present.  Not  only 
were  the  large  and  medium-sized  nerve  cells  smaller,  but  tbc 
impression  made  on  the  observer  was  that  they  were  less  nu- 
merous than  in  the  normal  cortex."  As  we  now  might  expect, 


48  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

he  found  the  right  side  of  the  cortex  in  the  occipital  region 
much  thinner  than  the  left  side.  Undoubtedly  the  earlier  blind- 
ness of  the  left  eye  caused  the  earlier  arrest  or  atrophy  of  the 
left  side  of  the  visual  centre,  and  the  experiences  in  seeing  with 
the  right  eye,  even  though  poorly,  for  a  few  years,  caused  the 
superior  development  of  the  centre  controlling  that  eye.1 

Association  Tracts  a  Form  of  Localization. — Another  type  of 
brain  specialization  and  localization  of  much  interest  and  im- 
portance educationally  is  found  in  the  special  mechanisms  for 
association.  These  are  the  association  fibres  (a)  connecting  the 
adjacent  convolutions;  (b)  those  connecting  different  tracts,  es- 
pecially those  connecting  the  frontal  and  occipital,  and  the  frontal 
and  temporal  areas;  and  (c)  those  connecting  sensory  and  motor 
areas  (see  Fig.  20).  The  commissural  fibres  connecting  the  two 
hemispheres  are  in  reality  association  fibres  securing  harmony 
between  the  actions  of  the  two  halves  of  the  brain. 

The  groups  of  association  fibres  connecting  the  various  con- 
volutions are  so  definite  as  to  be  readily  seen  with  the  naked 
eye,  as  are  those  between  the  larger  lobes.  These  are  all  well 
established  by  heredity  and  only  await  proper  stimulation  to 
develop  fully.  That  they  need  proper  exercise  is  shown  by  the 
facts  that  at  birth  they  are  undeveloped  and  they  develop  best 
in  those  with  normal  experiences.  In  the  feeble-minded  they 
are  poorly  developed. 

Obscure  Association  Tracts.— But  there  are  other  association 
paths  not  so  easy  of  observation;  in  fact,  most  of  what  we  know 
of  them  is  through  the  observed  data  of  nervous  anatomy  and 
the  well-tested  data  on  the  transmission  of  nervous  energy, 
and  through  our  knowledge  of  functional  relations  established. 
While  we  cannot  always  see  the  relations  by  a  study  of  anatomical 
structure,  we  can  observe  the  behavior  through  expression.  Just 
as  we  know  that  every  impression  must  result  in  some  motoi 
expression,  we  are  also  sure  that  every  series  of  muscular  and 
psychic  connections  is  the  consequent  of  nervous  connections 

'Donaldson,    On    the    Brain    of    Laura    Bridgman,    Am.    Jour,   of  Psych. 
Sept.,  1890,  Dec.,  1891. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    49 


established.  Any  set  of  sensory  cells  may  become  connected 
with  any  other  sensory  cells  or  any  other  motor  cells.  We  know 
that  we  connect  visual  impressions  with  other  visual  impressions, 
and  also  with  sounds, 
tastes,  and  smells,  and 
with  a  variety  of  motor 
activities.  Because  of 
these  psychic  relations 
and  because  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  psycho-physical 
parallelism  we  know  that 
neural  connections  are 
established,  though  not 
possible  to  be  seen.  In 

fact     the   brain     as    SU2-    FIG.  21. — Projection  fibres  of  the  human  brain. 

.    ,      -  .  (After  Starr,  from  Donaldson's  Growth  oj  the  Brain,  p. 

geStCU    bCtOre,    IS    a    WOn-        256.)     Note  how  all  the. tracts  of  projecting  fibres  have 

.  their  origin  in  the  original  stem  of  the  nervous  system. 

derf  Ul  CO-Ordinating    ma-        They  represent  specialized  portions  and  go  to  still  other 

specialized  portions. 

chine.    The  greater  the 

complexity  of  co-ordinations  and  the  finer  their  adjustments,  the 
higher  the  type  of  brain  and  the  higher  the  type  of  intelligence  of 
its  possessor.  Contrast  the  brains  and  activities  of  a  reptile  with 
those  of  man,  who  can  play  a  piano,  make  a  wratch,  construct 
an  engine,  or  paint  a  picture. 

Undoubtedly  a  caution  should  be  given  against  thinking  that 
all  functions  can  be  localized  or  that  each  portion  of  the  brain 
can  be  demonstrated  to  control  a  particular  function.  Special- 
ists in  anatomy  and  physiology  are  particularly  cautious  in  their 
statements  on  this  matter.  A  good  many  facts  have  been 
definitely  established  and  much  progress  is  being  made.1  Un- 
doubtedly each  complex  action  functions  in  many  centres,  and 
also  without  doubt  each  centre  functions  in  many  kinds  of 
actions.  The  association  tracts  connecting  the  various  centres 
are  probably  much  more  specialized  and  limited  in  their  func- 
tions than  are  the  centres.  May  we  not  compare  the  centres  to 


1  See  Howell,   Text-Book  of  Physiology,  chap.   IX;    Church  and  Peterson. 
Nervous  and  Mental  Diseases,  pp.  161-180;    and  other  medical  works. 


5o  PRINCIPLES  OF   EDUCATION 

offices  carrying  on  a  multiplicity  of  functions,  receiving,  inter- 
preting, and  sending,  while  the  pathways,  ingoing  and  outgoing, 
are  limited  in  function  ?  Furthermore,  should  not  the  whole 
circuit — ingoing  impulse,  transforming  centre,  associating  con- 
nectives, and  outgoing  impulse — be  regarded  as  a  localized 
centre  ?  Thus  the  topography  becomes  very  complex  and  diffi- 
cult to  localize.  Certain  great  centres,  like  vision,  hearing, 
taste,  and  smell,  are  tolerably  definite,  but  all  complex  activities 
must  become  lost  in  the  maze  of  centres  and  connectives.  This 
does  not  minimize  the  reality  of  localization — in  fact,  emphasizes 
it — but  gives  us  the  concept  of  dynamic  relations  rather  than 
topographical  definiteness  alone. 

Donaldson  says: l  "The  sensory  impulse  reaching  the  cortical 
cells  may  thus  be  compared  to  a  complex  sound  wave  striking 
upon  resonators,  each  one  of  which  picks  out  that  vibration  to 
which  it  has  been  attuned  and  responds  to  it.  Moreover,  to 
push  the  simile  further,  the  pitch  of  responsive  cells  may  be 
altered  by  the  play  of  other  impulses  upon  them,  and  thus  the 
analysis  at  different  times  is  not  the  same.  Refinement  in  the 
structure  of  the  cerebral  cortex  may,  therefore,  be  developed  in 
three  ways:  first,  by  the  multiplication  of  the  pathways  bearing 
the  incoming  impulses;  second,  by  rendering  more  sensitive  to 
slight  differences  in  the  stimulation  those  cells  whose  function 
it  is  to  receive  these  impulses;  and  third,  by  increasing  the  num- 
ber of  the  central  cells.  So  far  as  can  be  seen  at  present,  the 
brains  of  the  lower  and  less  intelligent  mammals  are  inferior  in 
all  these  respects,  but  are  most  deficient  on  the  side  of  the  afferent 
and  central  elements." 

Importance  of  Cerebral  Specialization. — Professor  Ewald 
Hering  wrote  of  the  specializations  of  the  cerebrum:  "The 
different  parts  of  the  hemispheres  are  like  a  great  tool  box  with 
a  countless  variety  of  tools.  Each  single  element  of  the  cere- 
brum is  a  particular  tool.  Consciousness  may  be  likened  to 
an  artisan  whose  tools  gradually  become  so  numerous,  so  varied 
and  so  specialized  that  he  has  for  every  minutest  detail  of  his 

1  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  268. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    51 

work  a  tool  which  is  specially  adapted  to  perform  just  this  precise 

_-  kind  of  work  very  easily  and  accurately.     If  he  loses  one  of  his 

^  tools  he  still  possesses  a  thousand  other  tools  to  do  the  same 

work,  though  under  disadvantages  both  with  reference  to  adapta- 

o  bility  and  the  time  involved.     Should  he  happen  to  lose  one  of 

^p  these  thousand  also,  he  might  retain  hundreds  with  which  to  do 

the  work  still,  but  under  greatly  increased  difficulty.     He  must 

needs  have  lost  a  very  large  number  of  his  tools  if  certain  actions 

become  impossible." 

Diffusion  of  Energy  Before  Specialization  of  Function. — In 
the  human  infant  do  we  not  find  rather  amoeboid  diffusion  of 
nervous  energy  ?  For  a  long  time,  although  sensitive  to  a  great 
variety  of  stimuli,  its  muscular  co-ordinations  are  very  crude  and 
uncertain.  At  first  the  hand  clutches  objects  convulsively,  and 
is  very  liable  to  drop  them,  because  the  constant  dispersion  of 
nervous  energy  causes  new  contractions  and  expansions.  To 
learn  to  creep,  sit,  stand,  and  talk  requires  months,  even  years, 
and  ceaseless  trial  and  error.  To  be  able  to  pick  up  a  pin,  hold 
the  knife  and  fork  properly,  or  to  button  clothing,  means  long 
strides  in  the  educative  process. 

Even  in  processes  of  formal  instruction  we  find  analogous  con- 
ditions.    When  the  child  begins  to  write,  instead  of  holding  the 
pencil  lightly  and  executing  with  ease  and  facility  by  means  of 
O  fore-arm  or  finger  movements,  he  grasps  the  pencil  with  all  his 
might,  his  body  writhes  and  his  face  is  in  contortions.     Why 
ft    this  exhibition  ?     Simply  because  a  superfluous  amount  of  ner- 
.    vous  energy  is  being  liberated,  useless  movements  are  set  up,  and 
;    the  energy  instead  of  being  confined  in  particular  channels  is 
'    diffused.     It  is  interesting  to  watch  some  adults  try  to  cut  with 
scissors.     The  nervous  energy  is  so  diffused  that  part  of  it  goes 
v   to  the  jaws.     In  learning  to  tie  a  knot,  in  learning  to  skate,  etc., 
much  energy  is  diffused  and  useless  movements  occur. 

Qfc> 

-—      Education  a  Process  of  Forming  Organized  Pathways. — Edu- 
o^ 

*-  cation  is  thus  seen  to  be  in  part  a  matter  of  forming  organized 

pathways  of  discharge  in  the  nervous  system.     This  is  true 
whether  of  simple  artivitieq  of  tho^C  mor0  ™mpW  ^r.oc 


1_IB«=?  ARV 

STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL 


52  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

nected  with  formal  educative  processes.  For  example,  in  learn- 
ing to  talk  the  child  must  spend  many  months  of  laborious 
effort  in  accustoming  the  vocal  organs  to  respond  to  the  mandates 
of  the  mind.  Some  have  maintained  that  the  reason  the  child 
does  not  pronounce  his  words  accurately  is  because  he  does  not 
hear  accurately.  It  is  true  that  the  acquisition  of  fine  discrimi- 
nation among  sounds  is  of  slow  growth,  yet  careful  experiments 
reveal  that  children  hear  accurately  considerably  before  they  are 
able  to  control  accurate  vocalization.  Learning  to  sing  necessi- 
tates fine  adjustments  and  co-ordinations  and  often  requires 
much  time.  In  learning  to  speak  a  foreign  language  the  diffi- 
culty experienced  in  pronunciation,  stated  physiologically,  arises 
because  nervous  energy  is  diffused  instead  of  being  confined  to 
definite  pathways  of  discharge. 

Since  much  of  every-day  education  is  concerned  with  muscular 
reactions,  the  problem  is  to  establish  definite  co-ordinations  in- 
suring prompt  and  easy  responses.  This  implies  the  formation 
of  definite  nervous  mechanisms  which  shall  serve  as  pathways 
of  discharge  of  nervous  energy.  Halleck  says  that  these  habit- 
worn  channels  are  as  necessary  as  good  roadways  in  the  settle- 
ment of  a  new  country.  It  is  just  as  necessary  to  develop 
pathways  of  nervous  discharge,  so  that  nervous  energy  may  take 
paths  of  least  resistance,  as  it  is  to  have  insulated  wires  to  trans- 
mit electricity.  Uninsulated  wires  diffuse  the  currents  while 
insulated  wires  limit  them  to  definite  channels. 

The  largest  and  most  important  business  of  education  is  to 
establish  myriads  of  appropriate  and  efficient  associations  be- 
tween stimuli  and  responses.  The  man  is  to  be  taught  so  that 
when  stimulated  to  write,  draw,  pull  a  throttle,  or  manipulate  a 
surgical  instrument,  he  can  do  so  with  precision  and  dexterity. 
Such  results  are  consequent  only  upon  long  practice,  that  is, 
through  the  establishment  of  habits  of  well-worn  pathways  of 
nervous  discharge. 

Formation  of  Association  Paths. — Some  simple  cases  will  be 
taken  to  illustrate  the  process  of  establishing  association  paths 
through  educative  processes.  Suppose  one  is  to  learn  to  recog- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM    53 

nize  another  and  to  call  him  by  name  when  they  meet.  An 
association  must  be  established  between  the  sight  of  the  person 
(element  a)  and  the  sound  of  the  name  (element  6).  The  first 
time  the  name  is  heard  an  attempt  is  made  to  fix  the  name  in 
connection  with  the  visual  appearance,  i.  e.,  a  connection  is  set 
up  between  a  and  b.  Neurologically  a  transfer  of  energy  has 
taken  place  from  the  centre  of  sight  to  the  centre  of  hearing, 
which  we  may  designate  diagrammatically  as  a —  —  >  b, 
The  next  time  the  stimulus  comes  the  action  is  a  little  easier  and 
at  succeeding  times  still  easier.  Nutrition  is  supplied,  the  neu- 
rons grow  to  that  mode,  and  soon  the  track  becomes  thoroughly 
established  physically  and  mentally,  the  action  becomes  reflex, 
and  a  habitual  response  is  the  result.  Since  little  attempt  is 
made  to  recall  the  image  through  the  sound  of  the  name,  the 
path  a—  —  >  b  is  much  better  established  than  the  path 
b —  —  >  a.  In  fact  it  is  possible  for  the  association  from 
a—  —  >  b  to  become  practically  automatic  with  little  or 
no  power  of  recall  in  the  other  direction.  Witness  this  in  learn- 
ing the  alphabet  in  one  direction,  in  translating  from  German 
to  English,  etc.  Selecting  a  case  from  the  school  arts — learning 
to  read  and  write  a  word — we  find  a  much  complicated  set  of 
processes.  It  would  be  essentially  as  follows:  The  child  know- 
ing the  visual  appearance  of  the  cat  would  learn  the  word  cat 
as  it  sounds,  thus  establishing  dynamic  connections  between 
a —  —  >  b.  As  he  associates  reciprocally  the  word  and  the 
object,  he  establishes  a  dynamic  relation  in  the  opposite  direction 
or  from  b —  — >  a.  His  new  work  in  learning  to  read  is 
to  establish  relations  between  sound  and  sight.  It  is  doubtless 
some  time  before  the  sound  of  the  letter  calls  up  its  sight. 
Speaking  children  must  learn  to  pronounce  the  word  when  seen 
or  heard  or  when  the  object  is  beheld. 

Gradually  reciprocal  associative  relations  must  be  estab- 
lished between  seeing  the  object  or  the  word,  hearing  the  word, 
and  writing.  Ultimately  the  paths  between  each  centre  and 
every  other  centre  controlling  a  particular  element  must  become 
so  established  that  any  one  may  act  as  a  stimulus  to  call  up 


54  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

every  other.  The  various  processes  are  schematically  repre- 
sented in  Fig.  22. 

In  most  of  our  knowledge  some  one  element  in  a  group  usually 
serves  better  than  any  others  as  a  stimulus.  In  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  persons,  for  example,  the  visual  percept  is  much 
more  liable  to  awaken  recognition  than  is  the  name.  The 
relations  are  probably  largely  dynamic,  but  not  less  real  than  if 
large  bundles  of  fibres  had  actually  been  developed.  This  is 
no  more  improbable  than  the  fact  that  electricity  passes  through 
some  substances  in  one  direction  better  than  in  another,  or  that 
one  end  of  a  magnet  will  attract  and  another  repel.  Outwardly 
we  can  observe  no  reasons  for  the  behavior,  but  the  behavior  is 
our  witness.  The  microscope  reveals  no  difference  between  the 
magnetized  and  the  unmagnetized  iron,  but  we  all  know  that 
they  are  different  dynamically.  That  nerve  currents  travel  in 
one  direction  better  than  in  anothe.r  we  also  know  through  the 
behavior,  even  though  outward  appearances  of  structure  may 
not  reveal  it. 

Conservation  and  Cumulation  of  Effects. — It  may  be  well 
again  to  assert  here  that  whenever  a  stimulus  produces  a  change 
in  the  nervous  system  the  resultant  effect  is  conserved.  The 
law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  in  nature  is  as  operative  here 
as  in  the  case  of  iron  affected  by  torsion,  one  solid  struck  by 
another,  heat  converting  water  into  steam,  etc.  The  same  law 
holds  true  in  the  psychic  realm.  Nothing  is  lost,  and  nothing 
comes  by  chance.  Whenever  the  nervous  system  has  been 
modified,  on  the  recurrence  of  the  same  stimulus  it  is  able  to 
react  more  successfully  and  the  path  is  in  the  process  of  becom- 
ing the  path  of  least  resistance.  Inhibitions  are  built  up  in  a 
similar  manner.  That  is,  whenever  discomfort  arises  from  a 
given  action  the  connection  tends  to  be  weakened  and  oppos- 
ing paths  established. 

We  have  a  right  to  believe  that  the  effects  of  every  experience, 
no  matter  how  insignificant,  are  registered.  The  effects  are 
cumulative  and  by  this  means  development  proceeds.  Although 
we  are  unable  to  determine  by  any  known  means  just  how  much 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    55 


a  brain  is  modified  by  a  lesson  in  arithmetic,  Latin,  or  psychology, 
yet  we  are  absolutely  confident  that  some  modification  has  taken 
place  and  that  it  will  be  conserved.     If  we  had  microscopes 
powerful    enough    and 
means  of  applying  them 
to  the  brain,   we  could 
doubtless  note  the  close 
relation  between  exercise 
of  function  and  the  de- 
velopment of   structure. 
We  should  find  that  those 
centres  of  the  brain  which 
are  opportunely  exercised 

'  Fio.  22. — Schematic  representation  of  the 

Upon  the  right  material  paths  of  association  formed  in  reading 

develop  better  than  other  ""uLwn  by  Can.) 

centres  deprived  of  ap- 
propriate stimuli.  We  should  note  a  difference  between  the 
growth  of  some  children  mentally  starving  for  want  of  appropri- 
ate stimuli  and  others  forging  ahead  because  abundantly  sup- 
plied, just  as  we  see  the  differences  between  the  pale  faces  and 
emaciated  bodies  of  some  and  the  ruddy  complexions  and  robust 
forms  of  others. 

The  facts  of  aphasia  have  contributed  much  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  intimate  relation  between  the  development  of  nerve  ele- 
ments and  mental  growth.  They  also  show  how  experience — 
education — has  to  build  neural  connections  between  different 
centres.  Most  of  our  percepts  and  memories  are  exceedingly 
complex  and  may  be  aroused  through  numerous  channels.  In 
aphasia,  which  is  merely  loss  of  memory  of  a  special  type,  it 
frequently  happens  that  elements  which  have  once  served  as 
stimuli  to  awaken  the  entire  chain  of  relations  fail  to  serve  in  this 
capacity.  For  example,  it  may  occur  that  a  man  is  unable  to 
write  his  name  when  he  sees  it  written  while  he  may  still  be  able 
to  write  it  if  it  is  pronounced.  He  may  be  unable  to  pronounce 
his  name  if  he  hears  it,  but  may  be  perfectly  able  to  do  so  if  it  is 
written.  He  may  be  unable  to  speak  or  write  the  word  bell  if 


56  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

the  bell  is  seen,  though  he  can  do  so  if  the  bell  is  rung.  The 
explanation  is  that  the  association  tracts  between  some  of  the 
different  elements  have  become  functionally  deranged  through 
disease  or  pressure  and  the  transmission  of  impulses  is  inhibited. 
Sometimes  it  is  very  temporary,  caused  by  fatigue,  and  some- 
times much  more  serious,  when  lesions  have  been  produced. 

Effects  of  Use  and  Disuse. — Just  as  the  efficiency  of  physical 
and  mental  action  is  destroyed  by  injuries  to  the  central  nervous 
system  and  the  various  interconnecting  pathways,  so  the  brain 
may  fail  to  become  an  efficient  instrument  by  lack  of  develop- 
ment of  the  cell  elements  and  the  various  connecting  fibres. 
Neurologists  inform  us  that  the  number  of  cells  is  probably  as 
great  at  birth  as  at  maturity.  But  all  except  the  lowest  levels 
controlling  the  vital  functions  are  "unripe."  Experience — edu- 
cation— must  determine  the  number  that  come  to  functional 
maturity.  Through  experience  medullation  begins  to  take  place 
and  connections  to  be  established.  Stimulations  from  the  out- 
side world  begin  to  pour  in  through  the  senses  and  development 
proceeds.  At  first  very  simple  sensory  experiences  and  motor 
reactions  are  established.  Later  the  association  fibres  become 
so  well  established  and  so  complex  in  character  that  real  thinking 
and  deliberation  may  take  place.  These  are  not  possible  in  a 
simple  system  where  energy  is  diffused  as  is  the  case  in  lower 
animals  and  immature  children.  The  association  fibres  in  the 
human  brain  make  their  best  development  during  adolescence, 
though  growth  does  not  cease  until  maturity — probably  later. 
Coincident  with  this  neurological  development  the  power  of 
thought  proceeds.  It  is  futile  for  teachers  to  expect  thought 
power  to  manifest  itself  until  the  anatomical  substructure  is 
established.  Since  the  anatomical  development  is  contingent 
upon  nutrition,  sleep,  rest,  and  various  hygienic  factors,  it  is 
preposterous  to  expect  good  mental  development  regardless  of 
them  (see  the  chapter  on  "Fatigue"). 

Importance  of  the  Plastic  Period. — If  nerve  cells  are  ever 
developed  to  functional  maturity  and  efficiency,  it  must  be  ac- 
complished during  the  plastic  period  of  childhood  and  youth. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    57 

During  these  periods  the  nervous  system  is  responsive  to  educa- 
tion. It  is  a  notable  fact  that  restitution  of  function  may  occur 
when  brain  injuries  occur  in  childhood  and  youth,  but  seldom 
later.  In  man  the  paralysis  of  a  limb  caused  by  brain  injury 
is  usually  permanent,  but  in  a  child  not  frequently  so.  Injury 
to  one  hemisphere  occurring  in  youth  may  be  compensated  by 
special  development  and  transference  of  function  to  the  other, 
but  in  adults  this  is  no  longer  possible. 

"The  intensity  with  which  any  form  of  exercise  is  carried  on 
during  the  growing  period  leaves  its  trace,  and  the  absence  of  it 
at  the  proper  time  is  for  the  most  part  irremediable.  We  should 
hardly  expect  much  appreciation  of  color  in  a  person  brought 
up  in  the  dark,  however  good  his  natural  endowments  in  this 
direction.  Thus  any  lack  of  early  experience  may  leave  a  spot 
permanently  undeveloped  in  the  central  system — a  condition  of 
much  significance,  for  each  locality  in  the  cerebrum  is  not  only 
a  place  at  which  reactions,  using  the  word  in  a  narrow  sense,  may 
occur,  but  by  way  of  it  pass  fibres  having  more  distant  connec- 
tions, and  its  lack  of  development  probably  reduces  the  associa- 
tive value  of  these  also."  l 

Donaldson  further  says:2  "It  has  been  made  probable  that 
by  the  cultivating  processes  of  school  training  the  formed  struct- 
ures tend  to  be  strengthened,  dormant  elements  roused  to  better 
growth  and  organization,  and  made  more  perfect  in  this  or  that 
direction  according  to  the  nature  of  the  exercise.  By  strength- 
ening the  formed  cells  their  powers  of  differential  reaction,  of 
organic  memory,  and  resistance  to  fatigue  are  increased.  By 
associating  given  sets  of  muscular  reactions  with  given  sense 
impressions  habits  are  formed,  in  consequence  of  further  organ- 
izations among  the  nerve  elements,  and  finally  nutritive  rhythms 
associated  with  the  periods  of  activity  and  rest  are  established, 
with  the  result  of  economizing  the  bodily  energy,  and  rendering 
its  expenditure  more  effective." 

Correlation  of  Nervous,  Muscular,  and  Mental  Actions. — The 
only  means  we  have  of  knowing  mind  is  through  muscular 

'Donaldson,  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  348.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  344. 


5&  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

responses.  If  we  are  to  interpret  psychic  processes  correctly, 
then  there  must  be  accurately  co-ordinated  sensations  and  mus- 
cular reactions.  What  one  says  orally  or  writes,  what  one 
paints,  models,  moulds,  or  makes,  how  one  uses  his  various 
muscles,  indicate  what  his  mind  is  doing.  Even  in  examining 
students  to  determine  their  grades  we  are  obliged  to  rely  upon 
some  of  these  manifestations.  If  they  speak  or  write  incorrectly 
we  judge  that  their  thoughts  have  been  inaccurate.  From  im- 
pression to  expression  is  a  law  of  psycho-physics.  It  is  exceed- 
ingly important  in  education.  It  will  be  shown  later  that  im- 
pressions and  expressions  react  reciprocally  upon  each  other. 
Just  as  we  may  know  of  the  healthful  activity  of  mind  and 
brain  through  muscular  actions,  we  may  also  discern  signs  of 
mental  disease.  Warner  says : 1  "The  general  condition  of  the 
nerve-system  is  expressed  by  motor  signs — freshness,  fatigue, 
irritability,  all  may  be  indicated  to  us  by  movements  of  the 
child,  the  absence  of  movements,  or  by  the  attitude  or  posture  of 
the  body,  which  depend  upon  motor  action." 

It  thus  becomes  perfectly  apparent  that  the  problem  of  educa- 
tion is  as  much  concerned  with  the  education  of  the  nervous 
system  as  of  the  mind.  Later  discussions  will  also  go  to  show 
how  much  it  is  concerned  with  muscular  adjustments  and  the 
co-ordination  of  mental  and  muscular  activities.  The  brain  is 
the  great  co-ordinating  organ,  making  possible  higher  forms  of 
choice,  inhibition,  and  volition.  To  succeed  in  improving  or 
systematizing  the  child's  expressions  means  that  corresponding 
improvement  has  taken  place  in  his  brain  and  nervous  system. 
Every  controlled  and  co-ordinated  movement  means  the  correla- 
tion of  well-defined  brain  tracts  and  association  areas.  Con- 
versely improvement  of  the  brain  and  the  establishment  of 
organized  pathways  of  nervous  discharge  are  necessary  for  im- 
proved mental  action. 

Evolution  of  Nervous  System  Means  Education. — It  is  readily 
noted  that  the  nervous  system  becomes  more  and  more  complex 
with  the  ascending  scale  of  life.  In  the  lowest  forms  of  life, 

1  The  Study  oj  Children,  p.  40. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM  59 

with  simple  needs  and  activities,  no  nervous  structure  is  ever 
visible.  Their  organic  structures  are  as  undifferentiated  as  their 
functions  and  activities.  With  the  appearance  of  differentiated 
functions  arise  specialized  structures  to  fulfil  the  varied  functions. 
We  may  go  even  further  and  assert  simply  a  biological  law,  viz., 
that  the  specialized  structures  arise  through  the  exercise  of 
special  forms  of  activities.  That  is,  the  experiences  functioning 
in  a  particular  way  accentuate  organs  and  cause  their  develop- 
ment in  harmony  with  the  actions.  The  individuals  and  even 
nervous  organs  of  the  individuals  become  accustomed  to  acting 
in  specialized  ways  because  these  modes  are  found  advantageous. 
Each  activity  tends  to  develop  the  function  and  structure  still 
further.  Habits  are  engendered  which  tend  to  be  conserved, 
and  in  this  way  the  future  conduct  is  determined.  As  before 
stated,  whatever  biases  the  individual,  or  an  organ,  toward  a 
particular  mode  of  conduct  is  educative. 

Thus  the  whole  development  and  specialization  of  the  nervous 
system  in  the  ascending  orders  of  life  represent  a  process  of 
education.  The  type  of  growth  and  the  manner  of  functioning 
at  any  given  stage  represent  the  resultant  of  all  previous  ex- 
periences— education.  As  fast  as  activities  have  been  experi- 
enced nature  has  recorded  the  effects  indelibly  in  the  nervous 
system.  Thus,  while  the  nervous  system  of  any  organism  repre- 
sents the  kind  and  degree  of  possibilities  of  further  experiences, 
it  reciprocally  indicates  the  kind  and  degree  of  experiences  which 
have  been  received.  While  it  is  true,  for  example,  that  the  brain 
of  the  bird  is  not  fitted  for  a  very  high  order  of  thinking,  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  birds  and  their  ancestors  have  never 
indulged  in  very  complex  mental  gymnastics.  The  most  funda- 
mental life  processes,  physical  co-ordinations,  relatively  simple 
perceptions  of  sight,  sound,  and  smell,  have  sufficed  for  their 
preservation.  In  the  more  sagacious  animals  like  the  dog,  ape, 
and  elephant,  we  find  much  more  complicated  brain  structures 
both  as  a  cause  and  as  an  effect  of  their  increased  intelligence. 
The  cerebellum,  the  lobes  of  sight,  smell,  and  hearing,  are  no 
smaller,  and  there  is  a  noticeable  increase  of  cerebrum. 


60  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Experience  (Education)  Has  Produced  Development. — In  man 

we  find  that  the  cerebrum  is  vastly  larger  proportionally  than  in 
any  other  animal,  and  also  that  the  frontal  areas  are  for  the  first 
time  prominent.  Even  in  human  beings  we  find  that  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  the  development  of  the  frontal  lobes  of 
the  lower  and  the  higher  races,  and  between  children  and  adults. 
This  is  very  significant  educationally.  It  represents  again,  both 
cause  and  effect;  possibilities  and  resultants  of  education. 
There  is  absolutely  no  question  that  the  adult  with  the  well- 
developed  frontal  brain  areas  is  capable  of  thinking,  reasoning, 
and  willing  in  a  way  impossible  to  a  child  in  which  this  develop- 
ment has  not  yet  taken  place.  Similar  differences  between 
civilized  and  primitive  man  are  equally  apparent.  It  is  also 
thoroughly  demonstrable  that  education  will  tend  to  produce 
this  development,  or  lack  of  it  cause  degeneration  and  atrophy. 
Venn  studied  the  growth  of  the  heads  of  Cambridge  students 
and  found  that  the  heads  of  the  best  students  grew  longest 
and  largest.  Measurements  secured  before  and  after  their 
university  course  showed  that  their  cranial  growth  was 
greater  than  in  non-students  at  corresponding  periods.  In- 
vestigations show  that  loss  of  brain  weight,  common  to 
middle  life  and  old  age,  does  not  take  place  so  early  nor  so 
rapidly  in  the  case  of  eminent  men  as  in  others.  Although 
their  brains  have  an  inherited  initial  superiority,  yet  neurol- 
ogists believe  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  judicious  mental 
exercise  postpones  decline. 

Donaldson,  on  the  authority  of  Bischoff,  says  that  the  final 
decrease  in  the  weight  of  the  encephalon  usually  begins  in  men 
at  about  fifty-five  years,  and  in  women  some  years  earlier.  His 
curves  indicate  that  the  decline  in  the  weight  of  the  brains  of 
eminent  men  is  deferred  till  after  sixty-five  years.1  This,  how- 
ever, should  not  seem  strange.  Persons  who  maintain  a  vigor- 
ous muscular  tone  through  rational  physical  exercise  preserve 
their  muscular  vigor  until  a  later  age  than  those  who  have  nevei 
cultivated  their  muscles. 

1  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  325. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEM    61 

Galton  regards  proper  exercise  of  the  brain  as  a  prerequisite 
of  growth  and  a  lack  of  it  as  a  cause  of  degeneration.  He 
wrote:1  "Although  it  is  pretty  well  ascertained  that  in  the 
masses  of  the  population  the  brain  ceases  to  grow  after  the  age 
of  nineteen,. or  even  earlier,  it  is  by  no  means  so  with  university 
students."  Venn  wrote:2  "Comparing  the  'head  volumes'  of 
the  students,  two  facts  claim  notice,  viz.,  first,  that  the  heads  of 
the  high  honor  men  are  distinctly  larger  than  those  of  the  pass 
men;  and  second,  that  the  heads  of  all  alike  continue  to  grow  for 
some  years  after  the  age  of  nineteen."  Consequently  the  meas- 
urements so  carefully  made  by  Venn  are  exceedingly  significant. 

Has  Evolution  Ceased? — It  is  very  interesting  to  consider 
whether  specialization  has  reached  the  limit  in  the  case  of  man's 
brain  and  psychic  life.  John  Fiske  wrote,3  as  a  chapter  heading, 
these  striking  words:  "On  the  earth  there  will  never  be  a 
higher  creature  than  man."  Drummond  in  his  chapter  on  the 
arrest  of  the  body,4  commenting  upon  the  statement,  says:  "It 
is  a  daring  prophecy,  but  every  probability  of  science  attests 
the  likelihood  of  its  fulfilment.  The  goal  looked  forward  to 
from  the  beginning  of  time  has  been  attained.  Nature  has 
succeeded  in  making  a  man;  she  can  go  no  further;  organic 
evolution  has  done  its  work." 

While  acknowledging  that  psychical  evolution  is  the  type  of 
all  further  human  progress,  yet  we  should  not  regard  present 
physical  development  as  by  any  means  complete,  nor  the  present 
type  of  man  as  perfect.  "Man  is  the  tadpole  of  what  he  is  to 
be,"  the  favorite  phrase  of  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  is  much  nearer 
the  truth.  Struggle  for  still  higher  ideals  than  have  ever  been 
held  will  tend  to  develop  a  higher  type  of  psychic  life  than  any 
yet  realized;  and  as  mental  life  in  all  its  phases  of  development 
has  been  paralleled  by  nervous  and  muscular  development  and 
has  rendered  the  psychical  evolution  possible,  may  we  not  expect 
still  higher  development  of  both  physical  and  mental  life  ?  Be- 
cause of  psycho-physical  parallelism  it  must  follow  that  if  further 

1  Nature,  41:  454.  2Xatnre,  41:    452. 

3  Destiny  oj  Man,  p.  26.  *  Ascent  oj  Man,  p.  99. 


62  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

progress  in  mental  life  is  to  be  attained  in  any  direction,  there 
must  be  corresponding  structural  adaptation  of  the  physical 
organism. 

For  example,  in  order  to  attain  a  higher  appreciation  of  music, 
it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  a  more  delicate  auditory  organism 
must  be  evolved.  And  with  a  constantly  heightening  ideal  of 
music  and  a  struggle  to  cultivate  better  understanding  and 
appreciation  this  conscious  selection  must  have  as  one  effect — 
that  of  a  more  highly  developed  organism.  Similarly  more 
sensitive  visual  organs  may  be  developed  which  would  be  sensi- 
tive to  tints  and  colors  and  fine  shades  of  difference  not  now 
possible  to  the  imperfect  eye.  The  sense  organs  of  touch  may 
become  so  delicate  that  grades  of  workmanship  and  professional 
skill  in  the  artist,  the  physician,  etc.,  hitherto  undreamed  of,  may 
be  made  possible.  Of  course,  some  organs  and  powers  may 
degenerate,  but  indefinite  variation  and  change  are  not  only 
possible  but  extremely  probable.  Within  historic  times,  even 
in  a  few  generations,  I  am  pleased  to  believe,  permanent  modifi- 
cations have  taken  place  in  man's  brain  and  sense  organs  through 
cultivation  of  powers  present  and  in  response  to  the  struggle  for 
the  attainment  of  higher  ideals.  We  do  not  marvel  when  the 
breeder  produces  complete  transformation  through  selection  and 
the  emphasis  of  desirable  qualities.  New  breeds  of  horses  and 
dogs,  unrecognizable  as  related  to  the  old  through  outward  ap- 
pearance, and  vastly  superior  in  mental  qualities,  are  secured  in 
a  few  generations. 

"Shall  it  stop  here?  Shall  it  not  be  carried  forward  on  a 
higher  plane  by  the  conscious  effort  of  man  ?  Is  not  all  civiliza- 
tion, all  culture,  all  education  a  voluntary  process  of  cephaliza- 
tion  ?  Here,  also,  there  must  prevail  the  same  law  of  progressive 
domination  of  the  higher  over  the  lower,  of  the  distinctively 
human  over  the  animal,  of  mind  over  body;  and  in  the  mind, 
of  the  higher  faculties  over  the  lower,  the  reflective  over  the  per- 
ceptive, and  of  the  moral  character  over  all.  In  all  your  culture 
be  sure  that  you  strive  to  follow  this  law  of  evolution."  1 

1  Le  Contc,  Comparative  Physiology  and  Morphology  oj  Animals,  p.  83. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION 

Progressive  Development  of  the  Individual. — All  individuals 
oegin  life  as  a  single  cell  and  it  is  only  after  gradual  differentia- 
tion and  specialization  that  complex  animal  forms  are  evolved. 
Wallace  remarks  apropos  of  this:  "The  progressive  develop- 
ment of  any  vertebrate  from  the  ovum  or  minute  embryonic 
egg  affords  one  of  the  most  marvellous  chapters  in  natural  his- 
tory. We  see  the  contents  of  the  ovum  undergoing  numerous 
definite  changes;  its  interior  dividing  and  subdividing  till  it 
consists  of  a  mass  of  cells;  then  a  groove  appears  marking  out 
the  median  line  or  vertebral  column  of  the  future  animal,  and 
thereafter  are  slowly  developed  the  various  essential  organs  of 
the  body."  1  Huxley  remarks  in  the  same  connection  after 
describing  the  progressive  changes  in  the  canine  embryo:  "The 
history  of  the  development  of  any  other  vertebrate  animal, 
lizard,  snake,  frog,  or  fish,  tells  the  same  story.  There  is  always 
to  begin  with  an  egg  having  the  same  essential  structure  as  that 
of  the  dog: — the  yolk  of  the  egg  undergoes  division  or  segmenta- 
tion, as  it  is  called,  the  ultimate  products  of  that  segmentation 
constitute  the  building  materials  for  the  body  of  the  young  ani- 
mal, and  this  is  built  up  round  a  primitive  groove,  in  the  floor 
of  which  a  notochord  is  developed.  Furthermore,  there  is  a 
period  in  which  the  young  of  all  these  animals  resemble  one 
another,  not  merely  in  outward  form,  but  in  all  essentials  of 
structure,  so  closely  that  the  differences  between  them  are  in- 
considerable, while  in  their  subsequent  course  they  diverge  more 
and  more  widely  from  one  another.  And  it  is  a  general  law  that 
the  more  closely  any  animals  resemble  one  another  in  adult 

1  Darwinism,  p.  448. 
63 


64  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

structure,  the  longer  and  more  intimately  do  their  embryos 
resemble  one  another:  so  that,  for  example,  the  embryos  of  a 
snake  and  of  a  lizard  remain  like  one  another  longer  than  do 
those  of  a  snake  and  of  a  bird;  and  the  embryos  of  a  dog  and 
of  a  cat  remain  like  one  another  for  a  far  longer  period  than  do 
those  of  a  dog  and  a  bird;  or  of  a  dog  and  an  opossum;  or  even 
those  of  a  dog  and  a  monkey."  1 

Resemblances  of  Embryos  to  Lower  Adult  Forms. — It  has  long 
been  observed  that  the  embryos  of  the  higher  animals  at  different 
stages  resemble  somewhat  the  adult  forms  of  various  lower 
species.  The  more  immature  the  embryo  the  lower  the  species 
resembled,  and  the  more  mature  the  embryo  the  higher  the  species 
which  it  approximates.  In  the  case  of  animals  which  undergo 
metamorphoses  in  attaining  adult  life  the  immature  stages  so 
completely  resemble  other  adult  forms  that  they  are  frequently 
regarded  as  another  species.  For  example,  moths  and  butter- 
flies in  the  larval  stage  would  naturally  be  classed  with  the  worms 
by  the  unscientific.  The  young  of  frogs  and  toads,  the  tadpoles, 
are  animals  fitted  to  live  in  water  only,  and  certainly  would  be 
classed  with  fishes  if  it  were  not  known  what  subsequent  meta- 
morphoses would  take  place. 

Marshall  wrote:  "Everyone  knows  that  animals  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  their  existence  differ  greatly  in  form,  in  structure,  and 
in  habits  from  the  adult  condition.  A  lung-breathing  frog,  for 
example,  commences  its  life  as  a  gill-breathing  tadpole;  and  a 
butterfly  passes  its  infancy  and  youth  as  a  caterpillar.  It  is 
clear  that  these  developmental  stages,  and  the  order  of  their 
occurrence,  can  be  no  mere  accidents;  for  all  the  individuals  of 
any  particular  species  of  frog,  or  of  butterfly,  pass  through  the 
same  series  of  changes.  .  .  .  Each  animal  is  constrained  to 
develop  along  definitely  determined  lines.  .  .  .  The  suc- 
cessive stages  in  its  life  history  are  forced  on  an  animal  in 
accordance  with  a  law,  the  determination  of  which  ranks  as  one 
of  the  greatest  achievements  of  biological  science."  2 

1  Man's  Place  hi  Nature,  p.  88. 

3  Biological  Lectures  and  Addresses,  p.  20* 


THE  THEORY   OF  RECAPITULATION          65 

The  Law  of  Recapitulation. — For  a  long  period  during  the 
course  of  development  the  embryo  of  a  given  animal  is  so  similar 
to  the  embryos  of  many  other  animals  as  to  be  difficult  of  dis- 
tinction. It  was  Agassiz  who  first  pointed  out  that  there  is  a 
definite  resemblance  between  certain  stages  in  the  growth  of 
young  fish  and  their  fossil  representatives.  He  drew  the  con- 
clusion that,  "it  may  therefore  be  considered  as  a  general  fact, 
very  likely  to  be  more  fully  illustrated  as  investigations  cover  a 
wider  ground,  that  the  phases  of  development  of  all  living  animals 
correspond  to  the  order  of  succession  of  their  extinct  represent- 
atives." This  resemblance  of  embryonic  stages  to  the  adult 
forms  of  lower  species  led  to  further  investigations  which  re- 
sulted in  the  belief  that  these  embryonic  stages  represented  an 
ancestral  type.  The  embryonic  conditions  at  various  stages  not 
only  resemble  other  species,  but  they  actually  represent  a  stage 
of  progress  at  which  some  ancestors  ceased  in  their  development. 
Inasmuch  as  each  complex  animal  represents  a  series  of  succes- 
sive stages  of  animal  life,  it  is  said  to  recapitulate  in  its  individual 
development  the  life  history  of  the  race. 

The  law  of  recapitulation  first  hinted  at  by  Agassiz,  later  more 
directly  by  Von  Baer,  but  which  was  first  definitely  formulated 
by  Fritz  Miiller  and  frequently  referred  to  as  Von  Baer's  law, 
briefly  stated  is  as  follows:  The  individual  in  its  development 
passes  through  or  recapitulates  the  various  stages  which  the 
race  has  passed  through  in  reaching  the  stage  represented  by  the 
individual.  Most  of  the  facts  that  support  this  theory  have 
been  derived  from  biology  and  embryology.  Paleontologists 
have  found  extinct  animal  series  representing  many  stages  of 
the  developing  embryos  of  present-day  animals.  The  fossil  re- 
mains represent,  of  course,  adult  forms,  and  hence  it  is  thought 
that  these  represent  racial  stages  of  the  ancestors.  Therefore 
it  is  said  that  ontogeny  recapitulates  phylogeny. 

Marshall  states  that,  "The  doctrine  of  Descent,  or  of  Evolu- 
tion, teaches  us  that  as  individual  animals  arise,  not  spontane- 
ously, but  by  direct  descent  from  pre-existing  animals,  so  also 
it  is  with  species,  and  with  larger  eroups  of  animals,  and  so  also 


66  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

has  it  been  for  all  time;  that  as  the  animals  of  succeeding 
generations  are  related  together,  so  also  are  those  of  successive 
geologic  periods;  that  all  animals  living  or  that  have  lived  are 
united  together  by  blood  relationship  of  varying  nearness  or 
remoteness;  and  that  every  animal  now  in  existence  has  a  pedi- 
gree stretching  back,  not  merely  for  ten  or  a  hundred  generations, 
but  through  all  geologic  time,  since  the  dawn  of  life  on  this  globe. 

"  The  study  of  Development,  in  its  turn,  has  revealed  to  us  that 
each  animal  bears  the  mark  of  its  ancestry,  and  is  compelled  to 
discover  its  parentage  in  its  own  development;  that  the  phases 
through  which  an  animal  passes"  in  fts  progress  from  the  egg 
to  the  adult  are  no  accidental  freaks,  no  mere  matters  of  develop- 
mental convenience,  but  represent  more  or  less  closely,  in  more 
or  less  modified  manner,  the  successive  ancestral  stages  through 
which  the  present  condition  has  been  acquired.  Evolution  tells 
'us  that  each  animal  haihad  a  pedigree  in  the  past.  Embryology 
reveals  to  us  this  ancestry,  because  every  animal  in  its  own  devel- 
opment repeats  its  history,  climbs  up  its  own  genealogical  tree."  * 

Rudimentary  Organs.— In  the  animal  body  are  found  some 
organs  which  subserve  no  function,  at  least  in  the  adult.  Some- 
times they  fulfil  some  function  in  the  embryonic  development, 
and  again  they  reach  only  a  rudimentary  stage.  These  vestigial 
organs  are  the  rudiments  of  structures  which  once  performed 
some  useful  service  in  the  animal  economy.  But  whenever  the 
need  ceases  the  organ  tends  to  disappear,  some  say  through 
disuse,  others  maintain  through  natural  selection — undoubtedly 
both.  At  any  rate  their  former  need  has  ceased  to  exist,  because 
of  a  change  of  habit  or  because  of  different  conditions  of  living, 
and  the  organs  are  now  dying  out.  LeConte  says:  "All 
through  the  animal  kingdom,  especially  in  the  more  specialized 
forms  of  mammals,  we  find  rudimentary  and  often  wholly  use- 
less organs.  These  are  evidently  remnants  of  once  useful 
organs,  which  have  dwindled  by  disuse,  but  have  not  entirely 
disappeared.  Examples  meet  us  on  every  side." 

1  Biological  Lectures  and  Addresses,  p.  201. 

*  Comparative  Physiology  and  Morphology  of  Animals,  p.  258. 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION          67 

Darwin  years  ago  pointed  out  that  "organs  or  parts  in  this 
strange  condition,  bearing  the  plain  stamp  of  inutility,  are  ex- 
tremely common,  or  even  general,  throughout  nature.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  name  one  of  the  higher  animals  in  which  some 
part  or  other  is  not  in  a  rudimentary  condition."  '  Foetal  whales 
have  teeth  though  when  grown  they  have  not  a  tooth  in  their 
heads;  calves  have  rudimentary  teeth  which  never  cut  through 
the  gums.  Some  organs  are  rudimentary  in  the  sense  that  they 
do  not  function,  though  perfect;  that  is,  they  are  useless. 
There  is  a  species  of  salamander  (Salamander  Atra)  which 
lives  high  up  in  the  mountains,  whose  young  are  full-formed 
at  birth,  as  are  those  of  all  mammals;  yet  during  foetal  life 
they  possess  exquisitely  feathered  gills  and  will  swim  about  in 
water,  if  they  are  secured  during  foetal  life.  During  adult 
life  they  never  live  in  water.  Lewes  remarks  that  "obviously 
this  aquatic  organization  has  no  reference  to  the  future  life  of 
the  animal,  nor  has  it  any  adaptation  to  its  embryonic  condi- 
tion; it  has  solely  reference  to  ancestral  adaptations;  it  repeats 
a  phase  in  the  development  of  its  progenitors."  2 

In  snakes  one  lobe  of  the  lungs  is  rudimentary.  In  birds' 
wings  the  tip  of  the  bony  structure  is  like  a  rudimentary  digit; 
the  smaller  hind  toe  of  birds  is  a  similar  case.  In  some  species, 
like  the  ostrich,  the  whole  wing  is  rudimentary.  The  eyes  of 
blind  fishes  and  other  cave  animals  are  rudiments  proclaiming 
a  former  power  which  is  now  inoperative.  The  dew-claws  of 
cattle  and  hogs,  the  splint-bone  of  horses,  are  rudimentary  toes, 
and  tell  the  story  of  their  five  toes  once  necessary  to  existence. 
Whales  now  have  no  hair,  but  rudiments  found  in  the  skin  show 
that  their  ancestors  were  hairy.  They  now  have  no  legs,  but  the 
vestigial  legs  reveal  their  four-legged  ancestry.  Plants  have 
degenerate  petals  and  spines  that  illustrate  the  same  features. 
There  are  also  many  rudimentary  psychic  traits  shown  by 
animals.  Many  dogs  turn  around  several  times  before  lying 
down  to  sleep  at  night.  Cats  tormentingly  play  with  their  prey 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  467. 

a  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  p.  468. 


68  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

after  it  is  captured,  and  domestic  dogs  still  bury  food — though 
it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  do  so. 

We  find  amphibians  in  all  stages  of  transition,  some  having 
only  just  begun  to  emerge,  while  in  others  the  transition  is  so 
nearly  complete  that  their  former  identity  is  scarcely  discernible. 
In  embryonic  or  tadpole  life,  all  amphibians  possess  gills  for 
extracting  oxygen  from  the  water,  and  organs  for  water  locomo- 
tion. It  is  only  when  they  reach  an  adult  stage  that  they  pos- 
sess organs  which  equip  them  for  terrestrial  existence. 

Retrogressions. — But  there  have  been  many  retrogressions  in 
the  process.  Many  animals  after  rising  step  by  step  above  the 
fishes,  and  through  the  back-boned  animals  until  they  reached 
a  rank  only  a  little  below  the  pinnacle,  for  some  reason  have 
gone  back  to  the  sea.  The  French  song  says,  "On  revient 
tou jours  a  ses  premiers  amours."  Among  those  that  have  com- 
pletely forsaken  the  land  and  assumed  such  fish-like  characters 
as  almost  to  elude  detection  are  the  whales,  porpoises,  and 
dolphins.  Their  fish-like  forms  and  marine  habits  seem  to  indi- 
cate affinities  with  the  fishes.  But  their  internal  structures, 
breathing,  and  mode  of  reproduction  and  suckling  the  young, 
proclaim  their  mammalian  kinship.  They  resemble  quadrupeds 
in  their  internal  structure  and  in  some  of  their  appetites  and 
affections.  Like  quadrupeds  they  have  lungs,  a  midriff,  a 
stomach,  intestines,  liver,  spleen,  and  bladder.  The  organs  of 
generation  and  the  heart  are  quadrupedal  in  structure.  "The 
rudimentary  teeth  of  the  whale-bone  whales,  which  never  come 
into  use,  are  final  links  in  the  chain  of  evidence,"  says  Professor 
Oskar  Schmidt,1  "that  the  whale-bone  whales  are  the  last  mem- 
bers of  a  transformed  group  which  commenced  with  animals 
with  four  toes  and  numerous  teeth,  and  which  by  the  gradual 
diminution  of  the  dentition,  have  become  whale-bone  whales." 
The  fins  still  retain  the  bones  of  the  shoulder,  fore-arm,  wrist, 
and  fingers,  though  they  are  all  enclosed  in  a  sac  and  could 
render  no  service  except  in  swimming.  The  head  is,  also, 
mammalian  save  in  shape,  which  has  become  modified  and  fish- 

1  The  Mammalia,  p.  248. 


THE  THEORY   OF   RECAPITULATION          69 

shaped  for  easier  propulsion  in  the  water.  The  mammalian 
skull,  with  all  the  bones  in  their  proper  anatomical  relations  to 
one  another,  is  still  preserved.  Professor  Schmidt  says,1  in 
regard  to  the  dolphin,  that  "  hind  limbs  like  those  of  the  Sirenians 
have  disappeared  externally  without  leaving  a  trace  of  their 
former  existence;  the  rudimentary  pelvic  bones  that  are  con- 
cealed in  the  flesh — sometimes  with  the  last  remnant  of  the  thigh 
bone,  very  rarely  with  the  shank, — bear  witness,  however,  to 
their  having  possessed  ancestors  with  four  legs." 

Transformations  in  Process. — There  are  several  species  of 
animals  that  exhibit  the  transformation  still  in  process.  Such, 
for  example,  is  the  polar  bear,  which  is  about  half  aquatic. 
This  animal  really  gave  us  the  first  hint  that  some  animals  may 
revert  to  water  life.  His  body,  much  longer  and  more  flexible 
than  that  of  common  bears,  enables  him  to  adapt  himself  to 
locomotion  in  water.  His  feet  have  become  decidedly  broad, 
his  head  pointed  and  his  ears  small,  thus  enabling  him  to  propel 
himself  through  his  aqueous  habitat  with  ease.  Other  bears  hug 
their  prey,  while  this  one  uses  teeth  and  claws  entirely.  The 
soles  of  his  feet  have  become  provided  with  long  .hair,  which 
protects  against  slipping  on  the  ice.  He  has  largely  lost  his 
hibernating  habits  and  fishes  and  hunts  throughout  the  winter. 
Seals  show  by  the  shape  of  their  skull,  dentition,  and  mode  of  life 
that  they  are  carnivorous  animals  that  have  adapted  themselves 
to  a  life  in  water.  Their  limbs  are  metamorphosed  into  fin-like 
rudders.  Instead  of  perfect  fish-like  tails,  they  have  two  legs 
flattened  together,  with  nails  on  the  toes.  These  are  obvious 
superfluities,  but  remain  as  an  inheritance  from  ancestors  to 
which  they  once  were  of  use.  They  have  now  become  modified 
by  the  present  fish-like  habits  of  the  animal. 

Human  Recapitulation. — The  various  stages  of  man's  physical 
development  resemble  so  closely  many  existing  and  extinct  forms 
of  lower  animal  life  that  apparently  we  need  but  to  apply  the 
general  law  of  evolution  to  say  that  the  individual  human  being 
recapitulates  in  a  general  way  the  historical  stages  of  the  de^ 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  250. 


70  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

velopment  of  the  race.  Man,  like  all  other  animals,  begins  life 
as  a  unicellular  organism.  Many  stages,  moreover,  correspond 
very  closely  to  animals  living  in  an  aqueous  medium. 

The  essential  stages  of  human  development  resemble  those 
of  other  animals.  The  main  difference  is  that  the  human 
embryo  goes  away  beyond  all  others  in  its  unfoldment.  But  so 
close  are  the  resemblances  among  the  earlier  embryonic  stages 
that  the  differences  are  almost  unrecognizable.  Some  one  has 
said  that  for  some  time  no  one  would  be  able  to  tell  whether  a 
given  embryo  might  turn  out  a  frog  or  a  philosopher.  Romanes 
says  that  when  man's  "animality  becomes  established,  he  ex- 
hibits the  fundamental  anatomical  qualities  which  characterize 
such  lowly  animals  as  polyps  and  jelly-fish.  And  even  when  he 
is  marked  off  as  a  vertebrate,  it  cannot  be  said  whether  he  is  to 
be  a  fish,  a  reptile,  a  bird,  or  a  beast.  Later  on  it  becomes  evi- 
dent that  he  is  to  be  a  mammal,  but  not  till  later  still  can  it 
be  said  to  which  order  of  mammals  he  belongs."  l 

Evidences. — There  are  several  lines  of  evidence  which  give 
such  abundant  proofs  of  man's  more  humble  ancestry  that 
little  doubt  of  it  remains  in  the  minds  of  scientists.  Chief 
among  these  on  the  physical  side  are  the  proofs  afforded  by 
embryology,  morphology,  paleontology,  and  pathology. 

Drummond  wrote:2  "The  human  form  does  not  begin  as  a 
human  form.  It  begins  as  an  animal;  and  at  first,  and  for  a 
long  time,  there  is  nothing  wearing  the  remotest  semblance  of 
humanity.  What  meets  the  eye  is  a  vast  procession  of  lower 
forms  of  life,  a  succession  of  strange  inhuman  creatures  emerging 
from  a  crowd  of  still  stranger  and  still  more  inhuman  creatures; 
and  it  is  only  after  a  prolonged  and  unrecognizable  series  of 
metamorphoses  that  they  culminate  in  some  faint  likeness  of 
him  who  is  one  of  the  newest  yet  one  of  the  oldest  of  created 
things." 

So  close  is  the  resemblance  among  the  embryos  of  different 
classes  of  animals  that  Von  Baer  himself  was  unable  to  distirt- 

1  Darwin  and  After  Darwin,  I,  119. 
*  The  Ascent  oj  Man,  D.  6(j, 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION          71 

guish  unlabelled  specimens  of  the  embryos  of  a  reptile,  a  fish,  and 
a  mammal  in  their  early  stages  of  development.  Professor  His, 
one  of  the  most  expert  of  embryologists,  on  viewing  a  slightly 
abnormal  embryo,  known  to  be  a  human  one,  "asserted  roundly 
that  Krause  (who  had  shown  it)  must  have  made  a  mistake,  and 
that  his  specimen  was  a  chick  embryo  and  not  a  human  one  at 
all."  l 

Huxley  wrote:2  "Without  question,  the  mode  of  origin  and 
the  early  stages  of  the  development  of  man  are  identical  with 
those  of  the  animals  immediately  below  him  in  the  scale.  .  .  . 
Indeed  it  is  very  long  before  the  body  of  the  young  human  being 
can  be  readily  discriminated  from  that  of  the  young  puppy;  but, 
at  a  tolerably  early  period  the  two  become  distinguishable  by 
the  different  forms  of  their  adjuncts,  the  yelk-sac  and  the  allan- 
tois.  .  .  .  But  exactly  in  those  respects  in  which  the  developing 
man  differs  from  the  dog,  he  resembles  the  ape.  ...  So  that  it 
is  only  quite  in  the  later  stages  of  development  that  the  young 
human  being  presents  marked  differences  from  the  young  ape, 
while  the  latter  departs  as  much  from  the  dog  in  its  development 
as  the  man  does.  Startling  as  this  last  assertion  may  appear  to 
be,  it  is  demonstrably  true,  and  it  alone  appears  to  me  sufficient 
to  place  beyond  all  doubt  the  structural  unity  of  man  with  the 
rest  of  the  animal  world,  and  more  particularly  and  closely  with 
the  apes." 

Wallace  has  added  in  commenting  upon  the  above:  "A  few 
of  the  curious  details  in  which  man  passes  through  stages  com- 
mon to  the  lower  animals  may  be  mentioned.  At  one  stage 
[of  human  embryonic  growth]  the  os  coccyx  projects  like  a  true 
tail,  extending  considerably  beyond  the  rudimentary  legs.  In 
the  seventh  month  the  convolutions  of  the  brain  resemble  those 
of  an  adult  baboon.  The  great  toe,  so  characteristic  of  man, 
forming  the  fulcrum  which  most  assists  him  in  standing  erect, 
in  an  early  stage  of  the  embryo  is  much  shorter  than  the  other 
toes,  and  instead  of  being  parallel  with  them,  projects  at  an 

1  Marshall,  Biological  Lectures  and  Addresses,  p.  250. 
1  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  p.  89. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


angle  from  the  side  of  the  foot,  thus  corresponding  with  its 
permanent  condition  in  the  quadrumana.  Numerous  other  ex- 
amples might  be  quoted,  all  illustrating  the  same  general  law."  l 
Recapitulation  in  the  Nervous  System. — The  development  of 
the  central  nervous  system  at  different  stages  of  the  human 


FIG.  23.— Sub-fish-like  stage. 


FIG.  24. — Fish-like  stage. 


FIG.  25. — Reptilian-like  stage. 


FIG.  26. — Bird-like  stage. 


Fio.  27. — Mammalian-like  stage. 


FIG.  28 — Human  stage. 


PLATE    SHOWING    SUCCESSIVE    STAGES    IN    THE    DEVELOPMENT 

OF    THE    HUMAN    BRAIN.       (AFTER    LECONTE.) 
In  Figs.  23-28  :   th,  thalamus  ;    ol,  optic  lobe ;    m,  medulla  ;   cr,  cerebrum  ;   cb,  cerebellum. 

embryo  exhibits  close  homologies  to  those  in  some  of  the  great 
groups  of  lower  animals.  Man's  brain  passes  through  a  series 
of  stages  of  interesting  complexity.  These  stages  are  only 
temporary  in  the  human  embryo,  while  they  represent  the  maxi- 
mum development  of  the  group  corresponding  to  such  stage. 

1  I)<im'inism,  p.  449. 


THE  THEORY   OF   RECAPITULATION          73 

Professor  H.  DeVarigny  says:  "One  may  easily  detect  in  the 
evolution  of  the  human  brain  a  state  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
brain  of  fishes;  but  while  the  fishes  permanently  retain  this  brain 
structure,  an  advance  occurs  in  man,  and  the  brain  acquires 
characters  of  the  reptilian  encephalon;  later  on  it  progresses 
again,  and  acquires  bird  characteristics,  and  finally  it  acquires 
those  characters  which  are  peculiar  to  mankind.  Here  again 
ontogeny  demonstrates  phylogeny."  *  The  accompanying  dia- 
grams (Figs.  23  to  28)  show  the  successive  stages  of  growth 
through  which  the  human  brain  passes.  No  other  system  of 
organs  illustrates  the  idea  of  recapitulation  quite  so  well. 

Vestigial  Structures  in  Man. — In  the  human  body  there  are 
numerous  obsolescent  organs,  which  persevere  in  form  only, 
and  give  unequivocal  evidence  of  former  ancestry.  There  are 
in  all  upward  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  that  have  been  dis- 
covered. The  vermiform  appendix  is  one  of  the  best-known. 
It  is  relatively  better  developed  at  birth  than  later.  The  mus- 
cles by  means  of  which  the  external  ear  is  moved  are  demonstra- 
ble only  in  exceptionally  atavistic  individuals.  The  panicules 
carnosis,  or  muscles  by  means  of  which  animals  move  the  skin, 
still  exhibit  vestiges  of  former  function  in  man.  Club-feet  are 
said  to  be  atavistic  reminiscences  of  remote  ancestors,  meaning 
no  more  nor  less  than  baboon  feet. 

"Prominent  among  these  vestigial  structures,  as  they  are 
called,  are  those  which  smack  of  the  sea.  If  embryology  is  any 
guide  to  the  past,  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the  ancient 
progenitors  of  man  once  lived  an  aquatic  life.  At  one  time  there 
was  nothing  else  in  the  world  but  water-life;  all  the  land  animals 
are  late  inventions."  After  emerging  from  the  annelide  and 
molluscan  stages,  what  was  to  become  man  remained  in  the 
water  until  evolution  had  produced  a  fish-like  stage;  "after  an 
amphibian  interlude  he  finally  left"  the  watery  domain,  but 
"many  ancient  and  fish-like  characters  remained  in  his  body  to 
tell  the  tale."  2 

1  DeVarigny,  Experimental  Evolution,  p.  35. 
*  Drummond,  The  Ascent  oj  Man,  p.  83. 


74  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Dr.  Brooks  asserts1  that:  "We  may  feel  sure  even  in  the 
absence  of  sufficient  evidence  to  trace  their  direct  paths,  that  all 
the  great  groups  of  metazoa  ran  back  to  minute  pelagic  ancestry." 

One  typical  vestigial  structure  which  dates  back  to  sea  an- 
cestry is  the  plica  semi-lunaris,  or  the  remnants  of  the  nictitating 
membrane  of  fishes.  It  is  a  semi-transparent,  curtain-like  mem- 
brane formed  on  the  inner  side  of  the  eyes  as  a  vertical  fold  of 
the  conjunctiva,  which  apparently  is  of  great  utility  in  sweeping 
across  the  eye  to  cleanse  it.  It  is  very  common  among  birds, 
some  fishes,  reptiles,  amphibians,  and  most  vertebrates.  In 
man  there  is  only  a  small  fold  or  curtain  draped  across  one  side 
of  the  eye,  and  Romanes  states  that  it  is  only  rudimentary  in  all 
animals  above  fishes. 

The  most  unequivocal  rudimentary  structures  which  give 
indication  of  water  ancestry  are  the  visceral  clefts  or  gill-clefts 
in  the  neck-region.  These  were  the  first  discovered  vestigial 
structures  to  indicate  the  probable  line  of  descent.  These 
structures  are  first  seen  in  the  amphioxus,  the  connecting  link 
between  invertebrates  and  vertebrates.  "  In  all  water-inhabiting 
Vertebrates  which  breathe  by  means  of  gills,  the  thin  epithelial 
closing  plates  break  through  between  the  visceral  arches,  and 
indeed  in  the  same  sequence  as  that  in  which  they  arose.  Cur- 
rents of  water,  therefore,  can  now  pass  from  the  outside  through 
the  open  clefts  into  the  cavity  of  the  alimentary  canal  and  be 
employed  for  respiration,  since  they  flow  over  the  surface  of  the 
mucous  membrane.  There  is  now  developed  in  the  mucous 
membranes,  upon  both  sides  of  the  visceral  clefts,  a  superficial, 
close  network  of  blood-capillaries,  the  contents  of  which  effect 
an  exchange  of  gases  with  the  passing  water.  .  .  .  Likewise  in 
the  case  of  the  higher  (amniotic)  Vertebrates,  both  inner  and 
outer  visceral  furrows,  together  with  the  visceral  arches  separat- 
ing them,  are  .  .  .  formed;  but  here  they  are  never  developed 
into  an  actually  functioning  respiratory  apparatus;  they  belong 
consequently  in  the  category  of  rudimentary  organs.  Upon  the 
mucous  membrane  arise  no  branchial  leaflets;  indeed  the 

1  The  Genus  Salpa,  p.  159. 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION          75 

formation  of  open  clefts  is  not  always  and  everywhere  achieved, 
since  the  thin  epithelial  closing  membranes  between  the  separate 
visceral  arches  are  preserved  at  the  bottom  of  the  externally 
visible  furrows."  l 

The  number  of  gill-clefts  and  visceral  arches  decreases  in  the 
ascending  scale  of  vertebrate  life.  In  some  of  the  lower  species, 
as  the  selachians,  there  are  seven  or  eight,  while  birds,  mammals, 
and  man  possess  but  four.  The  number  of  external  openings 
also  is  found  to  decrease  constantly  as  we  ascend  the  scale  of 
life.  In  the  higher  mammals  and  man  they  would  scarcely  be 
known  were  it  not  for  their  detection  in  the  embryonic  stage. 
But  they  are  discernible  in  the  chick  embryo  in  the  third  day  of 
incubation,  and  they  may  be  seen  distinctly  in  the  human 
embryo  according  to  His,  when  the  embryo  has  attained  a 
length  of  three  or  four  millimetres.  They  begin  to  become 
obliterated  by  the  fourth  week  of  fcetal  life.  But  still,  says 
Drummond,2  "so  persistent  are  these  characters  (the  gill-slits) 
that  children  are  known  to  have  been  born  with  them  not  only 
externally  visible — which  is  a  common  occurrence — but  open 
through  and  through,  so  that  fluids  taken  in  at  the  mouth  could 
pass  through  and  trickle  out  at  the  neck.  .  .  .  Dr.  Sutton  has 
recently  met  with  actual  cases  where  this  has  occurred.3  ...  In 
the  common  cases  of  children  born  with  these  vestiges  the  old 
gill-slits  are  represented  by  small  openings  in  the  sides  of  the 
neck  and  capable  of  admitting  a  thin  probe.  Sometimes  even 
the  place  where  they  have  been  in  childhood  is  marked  through- 
out life  by  small  round  patches  of  white  skin."  Dr.  Hertwig 
also  mentioned  the  fact  that  fistuke,  which  penetrate  from  with- 
out inward  for  variable  distances,  sometimes  even  opening  into 
the  pharyngeal  cavity,  are  to  be  met  with  in  human  beings. 
These  are  explainable  as  being  still  open  clefts  of  the  cervical 
sinus. 

The  ultimate  metamorphosis  of  the  embryonic  gill-clefts  is 
still  a  question  of  much  interest.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the 

1  Hertwig-Mark,  Text-Book  of  Embryology,  p.  286. 

*  Ascent  of  Man,  p.  86.  3  Sutton,  Evolution  and  Disease,  p.  81. 


76  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

thymus,  and  probably  the  thyroid  gland,  are  derived  from  the 
visceral  clefts.  The  thymus  is  derived,  according  to  Kolliker, 
Born,  and  Rabl,  from  the  third  visceral  cleft.  Some  authorities, 
among  them  DeMeuron  and  His,  differ  in  minor  points,  princi- 
pally as  to  the  number  of  clefts  involved,  but  in  the  main  agree. 
The  thymus  is  found  in  all  animals  beginning  with  the  fishes. 
Even  in  the  fishes  it  is  derived  from  epithelial  tracts  of  the  open 
gill-clefts  still  functionally  active.  Dohrn  holds  that  the  thyroid 
gland  is  the  remnant  of  ancient  gill-clefts  of  the  vertebrates. 
Although  this  is  disputed  by  Hertwig,  he  still  admits  that  "It 
appears  to  be  an  organ  of  very  ancient  origin,  which  shows  rela- 
tionship to  the  hypobranchial  furrow  of  Amphioxus  and  the 
Tunicates."  J  It  at  any  rate  gives  strong  evidence  of  the  close 
relationship,  being  developed  "from  an  unpaired  and  a  paired 
evagination  of  the  pharyngeal  epithelium,"  and  in  the  region 
of  the  former  visceral  clefts,  and  by  good  authorities  claimed  to 
be  developed  from  them.  The  so-called  accessory  thyroid  gland 
is  conceded  by  all  to  have  thus  arisen.  The  unpaired  funda- 
ments which  contribute  toward  the  thyroid  are  not  wanting  in  a 
single  class  of  vertebrates.  Dohrn  makes  several  bolder  hypoth- 
eses concerning  the  metamorphosed  products  of  the  embryonic 
clefts.  He  maintains,  "  (i)  that  the  mouth  has  arisen  by  the 
fusion  of  a  pair  of  visceral  clefts,  (2)  that  the  olfactory  organs  are 
to  be  referred  to  the  metamorphosis  of  another  pair  of  clefts — a 
view  which  is  also  shared  by  M.  Marshall  and  several  others— 
(3)  that  a  disappearance  of  gill-clefts  on  the  region  of  the  sockets 
of  the  eye  is  to  be  assumed,  and  that  the  eye-muscles  are  to  be 
interpreted  as  remnants  of  gill-muscles."  2  Hertwig,  however, 
dissents  from  some  of  these  views.  But  most  embryologists  are 
agreed  that  the  middle  and  outer  ear  are  derived  from  the  upper 
portion  of  the  first  visceral  cleft  and  its  surroundings.  In  fishes 
there  is  no  external  auditory  apparatus,  and  these  organs,  which 
in  man  develop  into  an  ear,  subserve  another  purpose.  The 
Eustachian  tube  represents  a  partial  closure  of  an  original  cleft; 

1  Hert wig-Mark,  Text-book  o)  Embryology,  p.  317. 
*  Hert  wig-Mark,  op.  cit.,  p.  288. 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION          77 

the  tympanic  membrane  is  developed  from  the  closing  plate  of 
the  first  visceral  cleft  and  surrounding  portions  of  the  arches; 
and  the  external  ear  is  derived  from  the  ridge-like  margins  of  the 
first  and  second  visceral  arches.  Drummond  says:1  "Ears 
are  actually  sometimes  found  bursting  out  in  human  beings  half- 
way down  the  neck  in  the  exact  position — namely,  along  the  line 
of  the  anterior  border  of  the  sterno-mastoid  muscle — which  the 
gill-slits  would  occupy  if  they  still  persisted.  In  some  families, 
where  the  tendency  to  retain  these  special  structures  is  strong, 
one  member  sometimes  illustrates  the  abnormality  by  possessing 
the  clefts  alone,  another  has  a  cervical  ear,  while  a  third  has  both 
a  cleft  and  a  neck-ear — all  these,  of  course,  in  addition  to  the 
ordinary  ears." 

Marshall  asserted  that  "Rudimentary  organs  are  extremely 
common,  especially  among  the  higher  groups  of  animals,  and 
their  presence  and  significance  are  now  well  understood.  Man 
himself  affords  numerous  and  excellent  examples,  not  merely 
in  his  bodily  structure,  but  by  his  speech,  dress,  and  customs. 
For  the  silent  letter  b  in  the  word  "doubt,"  the  g  in  "reign,"  or 
the  u>  in  "answer,"  or  the  buttons  on  his  elastic-side  boots,  are 
as  true  examples  of  rudiments,  unintelligible  but  for  their  past 
history,  as  are  the  ear  muscles  he  possesses,  but  cannot  use; 
or  the  gill-clefts,  which  are  functional  in  fishes  and  tadpoles, 
and  are  present,  though  useless,  in  the  embryos  of  all  higher 
vertebrates;  which  in  their  early  stages  the  hare  and  tortoise 
alike  possess,  and  which  are  shared  with  them  by  cats  and  by 
kings."  2 

Survival  Movements. — An  exceedingly  interesting  and  im- 
portant study,  and  one  which  sheds  much  light  upon  the  theory 
of  recapitulation,  was  carried  out  by  Dr.  Alfred  A.  Mumford 
of  England.3  He  noticed  the  peculiar  paddling  or  swimming 
movements  which  a  babe  only  a  few  days  old  made  when 
placed  face  downward  with  only  hands  and  feet  touching  the 
floor,  its  head  and  abdomen  being  supported  by  a  hand  placed 

1  Ascent  of  Man,  p.  89. 

*  Marshall,  Biological  lectures  and  Addresses,  p.  209.  *  Brain,  1897. 


78  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

under  each.  Being  struck  with  the  great  similarity  of  these 
movements  to  those  made  in  propulsion  through  a  watery 
medium,  he  began  a  systematic  study  of  infants'  movements. 
Besides  confirming  and  extending  many  of  the  recent  observa- 
tions concerning  an  anthropoid  relationship,  he  makes  state- 
ments which  are  much  more  far-reaching.  He  has  noticed  that 
the  limbs  at  birth  and  during  the  first  few  weeks  of  infancy  tend 
to  assume  the  primitive  developmental  position,  viz.,  "folded 
across  the  chest,  thumb  toward  the  head  and  with  the  palm 
toward  the  thorax;  but  more  often  the  palm  is  away  from  the 
chest-wall  and  is  directed  anteriorly  by  means  of  extreme 
pronation,  the  dorsum  of  the  hand  often  lying  on  or  near  the 
shoulder,  sometimes  an  inch  or  two  outside.  As  the  child 
wakes  up,  the  elbows  begin  to  open  out  and  the  palm  is  pushed 
outward  in  a  way  that  would  be  useful  in  locomotion,  especially 
in  a  fluid  medium.  In  fact,  it  is  the  movement  of  the  paddle." 
These  movements  are  described  as  slowly  rhythmical  movements 
of  flexion  and  extension  such  as  one  sees  among  animals  in  an 
aquarium.  They  occur  often  in  series  of  three  at  a  time  during 
a  quarter  of  a  minute,  followed  by  alternating  pauses.  These 
are  interpreted  as  vestigial  movements  of  a  former  amphibian 
existence,  which  were  of  fundamental  importance  before  fore- 
limbs  developed.  This  is  supplanted  by  the  shape  of  the  hand, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  highly  developed  of  bodily  organs  in 
function  but  in  some  respects  least  modified  of  all  the  skeleton. 
"In  shape  and  bones  it  is  more  like  the  primitive  amphibian 
paddle  than  is  the  limb  of  any  other  mammal." 

Other  Infant  Atavisms.— The  spinal  column  of  the  child  ex- 
hibits only  two  curves  at  birth  and  does  not  represent  a  truly 
human  vertebral  column.  "When  the  child  is  born,  the  curva- 
ture of  its  spine  in  the  dorso-lumbar  region  approximates  to 
that  of  an  ordinary  quadruped  in  which  there  is  no  lumbar 
convexity,  so  that  the  spine  in  that  region  presents  one  continuous 
curve  concave  forward.  For  some  time  after  birth  the  infant 
retains  the  quadrupedal  character  of  the  spinal  curve  in  the 
dorso-lumbar  region,  and,  as  it  acquires  nervous  and  muscular 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION  79 

power  and  capability  of  independent  movement,  its  mode  of 
progression  in  the  early  months  by  creeping  on  hands  and  knees 
approximates  to  that  of  the  quadruped.  It  is  only  after  it  has 
attained  the  age  of  from  a  year  to  sixteen  months  that  it  can  erect 
its  trunk,  completely  extend  the  hip  and  knee  joints,  and  draw 
the  leg  into  line  with  the  thigh,  so  as  to  form  a  column  of  support, 
which  enables  it  to  stand  on  two  feet."  .  .  .  The  human  char- 
acteristics "  are  acquired  after  birth,  and  are  not  imprinted  on  the 
human  spine  from  the  beginning,  though  the  capability  of  ac- 
quiring them  at  the  proper  time  is  a  fundamental  attribute  of 
the  human  organism."  1 

Grasping  Movements. — It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  in  early 
infancy  the  child  in  grasping  an  object  in  the  hand  does  not  clasp 
it  with  the  thumb  opposed  to  the  fingers.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  apes.  The  thumb  of  monkeys  is  of  comparatively  little  use 
and  some  species  lack  the  muscle  which  gives  control.  Women, 
who  are  more  primitive  than  men,  in  doubling  their  fists,  fre- 
quently do  not  clinch  the  thumb  over  the  fingers.  Children 
double  the  fists  similarly. 

Dr.  Louis  A.  Robinson  made  an  instructive  study  of  the  in- 
stinctive power  which  new-born  infants  display  in  grasping  a 
ringer  or  a  stick  placed  in  their  fingers.  So  tightly  did  the  babes 
grasp  objects  that  he  tested  them  to  discover  their  power  of 
grip  and  strength  of  arm.  In  over  sixty  cases  tested  within  an 
hour  after  birth  he  found  that  with  two  exceptions  they  could 
sustain  their  whole  weight  for  at  least  ten  seconds,  and  several 
held  on  for  nearly  a  minute.  At  four  days  of  age  when  strength 
had  increased,  nearly  all  could  sustain  their  weight  for  a  minute. 
At  two  weeks  several  hung  for  two  minutes,  and  at  three  weeks 
one  held  on  for  two  minutes  and  thirty-five  seconds.  This 
function  dies  out  soon,  either  from  lack  of  exercise  or  because  of 
the  natural  decadence  of  the  instinct — doubtless  both. 

Photographs  of  infants  show  that  "Invariably  the  thighs  are 
bent  nearly  at  right  angles  to  the  body,  and  in  no  case  did  the 
lower  limbs  hang  down  and  take  the  attitude  of  the  erect  posi- 

1  Sir  Wm.  Turner,  Naturt,  vol.  56,  p.  427. 


8o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

tion.1  This  attitude  and  the  disproportionately  large  develop- 
ment of  the  arms,"  Robinson  says,  "compared  with  the  legs,  give 
the  photographs  a  striking  resemblance  to  a  well-known  picture 
of  the  celebrated  chimpanzee  'Sally'  at  the  Zoological  Gardens. 
.  .  .  The  young  orangs  and  chimpanzees  that  they  have  had  at 
the  Zoological  Gardens  slept  with  the  body  semi-prone  and  with 
the  limbs,  or  all  except  one  arm,  which  was  used  as  a  pillow, 
curled  under  them.  This  is  exactly  the  position  voluntarily 
adopted  by  eighty  per  cent,  of  children  between  ten  and  twenty 
months  old,  which  I  have  had  opportunities  of  watching.  I  was 
told  by  the  attendants  at  the  Zoological  Gardens  that  no  ape 
will  sleep  flat  on  his  back,  as  adult  man  often  does." 

Dr.  Robinson  also  noted  the  probably  atavistic  tendencies  of 
children  in  the  peculiar  sleeping  postures  which  they  often 
select  when  unrestricted  by  clothing.  They  frequently  sleep 
curled  up,  and  often  face  downward,  with  the  limbs  flexed 
under  them.  Savages  not  infrequently  adopt  the  same  sleeping 
positions.  These  positions  resemble  those  adopted  by  the  simian 
apes.  Robinson  further  recites  that  "  probably  the  readiness 
with  which  infants  play  at  'bopeep'  and  peer  round  the  edge  of 
a  cradle  curtain,  and  then  suddenly  draw  back  into  hiding,  is 
traceable  to  a  much  earlier  ancestor.  Here  we  see  the  remains 
of  a  habit  common  to  nearly  all  arboreal  animals,  and  the 
cradle  curtain,  or  chair,  or  what  not,  is  merely  a  substitute  for 
a  part  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree  behind  which  the  body  is  supposed 
to  be  hidden,  while  the  eyes,  and  as  little  else  as  possible,  are 
exposed  for  a  moment  to  scrutinize  a  possible  enemy  and  then 
quickly  withdrawn." 

Psychic  Reverberations. — Genetic  psychology  is  tracing  out 
the  gradual  growth  of  mental  powers  and  processes;  philology 
shows  us  that  many  forms  of  speech  become  useless,  are  dropped 
off,  and  new  ones  are  coined  to  meet  new  conditions;  history, 
scx:iology,  and  archaeology  reveal  former  social  customs  and 
relations  that  are  now  obsolete,  and  sociology  points  out  new 

1  "Darwinism  in  the  Nursery,"  Nineteenth  Century,  1891,  vol.  30,  pp.  831- 
842. 


THE  THEORY   OF  RECAPITULATION          Si 

customs  and  laws  in  the  making.  We  cannot  hope  to  unravel 
all  of  man's  mental  history  with  any  such  demonstrable  certainty 
as  we  can  reconstruct  his  past  physical  history.  Mental  states 
are  the  most  plastic,  variable,  fleeting,  and  the  least  preservable 
entities,  and  although  we  must  logically  conclude  that  the  record 
of  our  psychoses  is  never  effaced,  yet  the  majority  become  so 
intricately  blended  and  interwoven  with  other  more  recent  ac- 
quisitions that  no  psychology  will  ever  be  able  to  reconstruct  the 
entire  race  history.  Only  the  most  oft-repeated  and  most  far- 
reaching  psychic  acts  leave  traceable  evidences. 

But  just  as  all  psychic  vestiges  are  less  evident  than  physical, 
so  rudimentary  psychic  phenomena  are  less  capable  of  proof 
than  vestigial  physical  structures.  There  is,  however,  unques- 
tioned evidence  of  numerous  rudimentary  psychic  traits,  and 
many  others  which  though  not  capable  of  rigorous  demonstra- 
tion, give  strong  evidence  of  their  origin.  Only  the  general 
faculty  or  power  is  transmitted  and  not  particular  forms  of 
knowledge.  Nature  provides  the  potentiality  for  reactions,  nurt- 
ure largely  determines  what  these  shall  be.  Moreover,  em- 
bryonic life  while  furnishing  the  main  clews  to  physical  recapitu- 
lation, gives  meagre  evidence  of  any  corresponding  mental 
retracement.  Of  prenatal  psychoses  we  know  little.  The  only 
evidences  are  the  simplest  muscular  reactions  to  mechanical  and 
thermal  stimuli.  Thus  while  the  physical  retracement  from  the 
lowest  unicellular  structure  to  the  distinctly  human  form  has 
been  accomplished  and  made  evident  during  prenatal  existence, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  any  mentality  above  the  purely  vegetative 
reactions  such  as  might  be  observed  in  the  lower  forms  of  animal 
life.  Again,  when  mental  life  is  launched  at  birth  it  is  of  the 
distinctly  human  type. 

Traces  of  peculiar  manifestations  of  the  minds  of  our  remote 
ancestors  are  to  be  met  with  in  "the  present  reactions  of  childish 
and  adolescent  souls,  or  of  specially  sensitized  geniuses  or  neu- 
rotics." There  are  also  times  in  the  life  of  the  normal  individual 
when  the  control  maintained  by  the  higher  and  more  recently 
acquired  centres  is  apparently  suspended  and  the  lower  and 


82  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

older  centres  there  given  full  sway  seem  to  step  in  and  the  result- 
ing psychical  phenomena  present  traces  of  long-past  activities. 
Such  conditions  are  evidenced  in  sleep  and  dreams.  Idiots  pre- 
sent childish  and  even  animal  mentality,  showing  that  the  higher 
centres  have  failed  to  function.  Instead  of  evincing  rudimentary 
psychic  phenomena  in  the  true  sense,  they  are  cases  of  arrested 
development.  Their  lives  are  made  up  of  those  activities  that 
are  common  to  animals  and  humanity  in  its  infancy.  Again, 
certain  modes  of  thought  crop  out  in  the  form  of  omens,  super- 
stitions, sayings,  proverbs,  and  signs,  to  which  we  ordinarily 
attach  no  importance,  but  often  hear  and  repeat.  All  these 
have  a  meaning  to  the  psychologist.  They  are  to  him  vestigial 
or  rudimentary  organs  and  suggest  use  in  a  remote  past.  "Few 
things,"  says  Black,  "are  more  suggestive  of  the  strange  halts 
and  pauses  which  mentally  a  people  makes  than  to  note  how 
superstition  springs  up  in  the  very  midst  of  modern  education."  l 
They  are  to  the  psychologist  what  gill-slits  are  in  pathological 
cases  of  arrested  development.  Children  are  very  prone  to 
superstition,  which  is  also  true  of  savages. 

Inherited  Memories.— The  range  of  atavistic  psychoses  is 
practically  unlimited.  Admitting  memory  to  be  a  biological 
fact,  we  assume  that  every  impression  leaves  an  ineffaceable 
trace,  by  which  we  mean  that  vestiges  or  predispositions  or 
habit-worn  paths  of  association  are  formed  which  will  function 
again  when  properly  stimulated.  Conservation  of  impressions 
is  a  state  of  the  cerebral  organism.  The  effect  once  produced  by 
an  impression  upon  the  brain,  whether  in  perception  or  in  a 
higher  intellectual  act,  is  fixed  and  there  retained.  The  re- 
tention of  any  act  in  memory,  according  to  James,  is  an  uncon- 
scious state,  purely  physical,  a  morphological  feature.  Accord- 
ing to  Ribot,2  we  may  assume  that  persistence  of  memories  "if 
not  absolute,  is  the  general  rule  and  that  it  includes  an  immense 
majority  of  cases."  This,  of  course,  applies  only  to  the  per- 
sistence of  memories  during  the  individual's  life,  but  as  Dr.  Hall 

1  Folk  Lore  in  Medicine,  p.  218. 
'  Diseases  of  Memory,  p.  185. 


THE  THEORY  OF   RECAPITULATION          83 

has  pointed  out:1  "We  may  fancy,  if  we  like,  that  on  some 
such  theory  as,  e.  g.,  Mach's  of  hereditary  or  a  form  of  memory 
by  direct  continuity  of  molecular  vibration  in  cells  or  their  ele- 
ments (Weismann's  biophors,  Wisner's  plasomes,  deVrie's 
pangens,  Nageli's  micellae,  etc.),  or  in  any  less  material  way," 
these  traces  or  vestiges  are  continued  and  may,  even  though 
apparently  forever  effaced,  reappear  in  future  generations  in 
children  or  pathological  cases.  Multitudes  of  impressions,  even 
in  the  individual's  existence,  may  never  be  recalled,  but  they 
might  be  if  the  proper  stimulus  occurred,  or  if  more  recent 
memory  modifications  were  removed  and  the  older  memories, 
as  it  were,  set  free.  Evidence  in  support  of  such  a  theory  is 
furnished  by  pathological  cases.  Events  long  since  apparently 
forgotten  often  reappear  in  disease.  This  is  accounted  for  by 
the  destruction  of  the  more  recent  and  higher  centres.  Accord- 
ing to  Ribot,  the  law  of  regression  is  that  a  progressive  dissolu- 
tion of  the  memory  proceeds  from  the  least-organized  to  the  best- 
organized,  from  the  new  to  the  old.  In  physiological  terms, 
degeneration  first  affects  what  has  been  most  recently  formed, 
because  it  has  not  been  repeated  so  often  in  experience.  Hence, 
may  not  such  cases  give  us  glimpses  of  the  remote  psychic  past, 
even  of  the  paleopsychic  age  ? 

Short  Circuits. — A  consideration  of  the  correspondence  be- 
tween ontogeny  and  phylogeny  shows  that  nature  has  short- 
circuited  many  processes.  Each  individual  no  longer  retraces 
the  entire,  long,  circuitous  route  traversed  by  his  ancestors. 
Not  only  have  many  steps  been  omitted  but  many  improvements 
have  been  devised.  Just  as  the  palace-car  has  superseded  the 
ox-cart,  many  organs  and  functions,  both  physical  and  mental, 
have  been  evolved  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  modern  life.  Simi- 
larly the  individual  starts  life  with  primitive,  relatively  undiffer- 
entiated  and  unspecialized  organs;  but  the  swim-bladders  give 
way  to  lungs,  the  one-chambered  heart  becomes  quadruple,  the 
notochord  disappears  and  the  spinal  column  develops  with  its 
wonderful  arrangement  for  protecting  the  still  more  wonderful 

1  American  Journal  oj  Psychology,  8,    173. 


84  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

brain.  In  the  course  of  climbing  up  its  own  genealogical  tree, 
the  human  being  leaves  behind  perhaps  thousands  of  structures 
which  were  necessary  to  particular  stages  of  existence  but  which 
become  excised  or  functionally  obsolete  as  the  higher  stages  are 
entered.  Some  hundred  and  thirty  of  these  vestigial  structures 
have  been  discovered  in  man's  body. 

To  preserve  all  useless  structures  would  be  a  waste  of  energy 
and  material,  and  nature  is  never  prodigal.  The  laws  of  use  and 
disuse  are  ever  operative,  causing  the  development  of  some 
characteristics  and  the  atrophy  and  elimination  of  others.  As 
soon  as  structures  lose  their  functions  they  tend  gradually  to 
disappear.  If  detrimental  they  are  the  sooner  dropped  off. 
The  vestigial  or  obsolescent  structures  which  come  regularly 
under  our  notice  in  any  class  of  individuals  are  undoubtedly 
those  which  subserve  some  unknown  purpose  during  embryonic 
life,  or  they  are  such  as  have  only  recently  ceased  to  function. 
Those  that  appear  occasionally,  but  are  absent  in  the  normal 
individuals,  are  probably  the  reverberations  of  long-since 
abandoned  organs.  They  have  become  reawakened  through 
stimulations  that  have  called  forth  functions  similar  to  those 
possessed  by  the  organs  in  question,  or  they  may  belong  to 
arrested  development.  To  this  class  many  pathological  freaks 
and  abnormalities  may  undoubtedly  be  referred.  Romanes 
says  that  "the  foreshortening  of  developmental  history  which 
takes  place  in  the  individual  lifetime  may  be  expected  to  take 
place,  not  only  in  the  way  of  condensation,  but  also  in  the  way 
of  excision.  Many  pages  of  ancestral  history  may  be  recapitu- 
lated in  the  paragraphs  of  embryonic  development,  while  others 
may  not  be  so  much  as  mentioned." 

It  is  worthy  of  further  note  also  that  many  of  the  preceding 
stages  in  a  given  line  of  existence  have  never  been  discovered  by 
embryology.  It  was  only  through  paleontology,  which  gathered 
up  the  fossil  remains,  arranged  them  in  series,  and  then  spelled 
out  the  line  of  ascent,  that  they  were  discovered.  By  a  process  of 
reasoning  it  was  then  determined  that  probably  the  same  general 
storv  could  be  traced  in  the  embrvo.  Manv  of  the  character:-; 


THE  THEORY  OF  RECAPITULATION          85 

found  analogies  in  the  embryos,  but  still  a  great  many  have 
never  been  found  and  it  should  not  be  expected  that  they  will 
be  found.  No  human  embryo  has  been  found  that  could  be 
called  a  fish,  but  in  all  human  embryos  there  are  characteristics 
which  are  very  similar  to  those  possessed  by  a  fish.  But  the 
real  fish  has  in  addition  many  more,  which  are  peculiar  to  its 
species  alone.  So  also  at  the  fish-like  stage  the  human  embryo 
has  characteristics  and  potentialities  (hidden,  it  may  be)  all  its 
own.  The  courses  of  development  of  the  fish  and  man  may 
have  been,  probably  were,  very  similar  up  to  a  certain  point,  and 
then  they  diverged,  each  adding  and  eliminating  such  as  were 
necessary  for  its  own  advancement.  Thus  animals  that  had  origi- 
nally the  same  progenitors  may  have  become  widely  divergent, 
so  much  so  that  even  their  embryological  features  in  their  higher 
stages  are  entirely  different.  Though  man  starts  life  as  a  uni- 
cellular organism,  there  is  no  time  when  this  organism  is  an 
amoeba  or  any  other  known  animal.  Though  it  may  so  closely 
resemble  an  amceba  as  to  be  indistinguishable  from  one,  yet  we 
must  admit  that  it  possesses  differences,  dynamic  relations,  prob- 
ably morphological  differences  if  we  had  power  to  discern  them, 
which  mark  it  off  from  everything  else. 

Recapitulation  Incomplete. — The  parallelism  is  inexact,  i.  e., 
recapitulation  is  not  perfect.  Although  the  animal  may  have 
passed  through  stages  which  have  been  demonstrated  by  paleon- 
tology, the  exact  parallelism  cannot  be  detected  by  embryology, 
showing  that  some  stages  have  dropped  out  and  others  been 
added.  Cope  says:  "It  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  records 
brought  to  light  by  embryologists  are  very  imperfect,  and  have 
to  be  carefully  interpreted  in  order  to  furnish  reliable  evidence 
as  to  the  phylogeny  of  the  species  examined.  An  illustration 
of  this  is  the  fact  that  the  species  characters  appear  in  many 
embryos  before  those  which  define  the  order  or  the  family, 
although  it  is  certain  that  the  latter  appeared  first  in  the  order  of 
time.  Most  of  the  important  conclusions  as  to  the  phylogeny  of 
Vertebrata  demonstrated  by  paleontology  have  never  been  ob- 
served by  embryologists  in  the  records  of  the  species  studied  by 


86  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

them.  Thus  I  have  shown  that  it  is  certain  that  in  the  amniote 
vertebrates  the  intercentrum  of  the  vertebral  column  has  been 
replaced  by  the  centrum;  yet  no  evidence  of  this  fact  has  been 
observed  by  an  embryologist.  If  we  could  study  the  embryonic 
development  of  the  vertebral  column  of  the  Permian  or  Triassic 
Reptilia,  the  transition  would  be  observed,  but  in  recent  forms 
caenogeny  has  progressed  so  far  that  no  trace  of  the  stage  where 
the  intercentrum  existed  can  be  found."  l 

Marshall  in  maintaining  that  recapitulation  is  not  perfect, 
shows  how  the  embryo  of  a  given  stage  of  development  cannot 
possibly  represent  exactly  any  other  adult  stage  of  existence. 
He  says:  "A  chick  embryo  of  say  the  fourth  day  is  clearly  not 
an  animal  capable  of  independent  existence,  and  therefore  can- 
not correctly  represent  any  [adult  ?]  ancestral  condition,  an  ob- 
jection which  applies  to  the  developmental  history  of  many,  per- 
haps of  most  animals."  The  record  is  "neither  a  complete  nor 
a  straightforward  one.  It  is  indeed  a  history,  but  a  history  of 
which  entire  chapters  are  lost,  while  in  those  that  remain  many 
pages  are  misplaced  and  others  are  so  blurred  as  to  be  illegible; 
words,  sentences,  or  entire  paragraphs  are  omitted,  and,  worse 
still,  alterations  or  spurious  additions  have  been  freely  intro- 
duced by  later  hands,  and  at  times  so  cunningly  as  to  defy 
detection."  2 

Further,  "  it  is  quite  impossible  that  any  animal,  except  per- 
haps in  the  lowest  zoological  groups,  should  repeat  all  the 
ancestral  stages  in  the  history  of  the  race;  the  limits  of  time 
available  for  individual  development  will  not  permit  this.  There 
is  a  tendency  in  all  animals  toward  condensation  of  the  ancestral 
history,  toward  striking  a  direct  path  from  the  egg  to  the  adult. 
This  tendency  is  best  marked  in  the  higher,  the  more  complicated 
members  of  a  group — i.  e.,  in  those  which  have  a  longer  and 
more  tortuous  pedigree."  3 

Hall,  who  has  promulgated  the  theory  of  recapitulation  more 
than  any  other  writer,  says:  "It  is  well  to  remember  that  from 

1  Primary  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution,  p.  209. 

1  Biological  Lectures  and  Addresses,  p.  306.  'Ibid.,  p.  311. 


THE   THEORY   OF  RECAPITULATION          87 

a  larger  biological  view,  every  higher  animal  is  not  only  composed 
of  organs  phyletically  old  and  new,  but  that  the  order  of  their 
development  may  even  be  changed.  Basal  and  lapidary  as  is 
the  great  biogenic  law  that  the  individual  recapitulates  the 
growth  stages  of  his  race,  the  work  of  Appel,  Keibel,  Mehnert, 
and  many  others  has  demonstrated  abundant  inversions  of  it. 
The  heart,  e.  g.,  in  the  individual  develops  before  the  blood- 
vessels, but  this  reverses  the  phylogenetic  order.  The  walls  of 
the  large  vessels  develop  before  the  blood-corpuscles,  while  the 
converse  was  true  in  the  development  of  the  species."  1 

See  The  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol.  X,  Jan.,  1899,  article  on 
"Hydro-Psychoses,"  for  a  fuller  discussion  by  the  author  of  the  subject  of 
recapitulation. 

1  Adolescence,  I,  p.  55. 


CHAPTER  V 
EDUCATIONAL    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    RECAPITULATION 

Education  Should  Follow  Nature. — All  the  foregoing  is  ex- 
tremely suggestive  for  education.  It  argues  for  an  opportunity 
for  the  retracement  of  hereditary  endowments  and  against  forc- 
ing nature.  It  is  equally  important  to  argue  against  keeping 
the  child  so  long  in  any  stage  as  to  produce  arrest.  Further- 
more, progress  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  present  generations 
remain  so  briefly  in  the  lower  types  of  structures  and  pass  rapidly 
on  to  higher  forms.  This  shows  that  nature  causes  each  genera- 
tion to  select  that  which  is  vital  and  fundamental  from  the  past 
and  then  builds  upon  that.  What  is  proved  to  be  of  enduring 
worth  is  seized  upon  and  made  relatively  permanent  in  the  race. 
Here  is  the  origin  of  instincts  and  the  structures  necessary  to 
their  functioning. 

Life  means  successive  change,  modification,  and  selection  of 
the  most  adaptable.  Education  is  life  and  educative  means 
should  seek  to  work  in  harmony  with  the  original  plans  of  nature. 
At  the  same  time  we  must  not  forget  that  the  school  and  other 
educative  means  are  included  in  nature.  We  should  cease  to 
say  "man  and  nature";  man  is  the  highest  product  of  nature. 
Nature  study  is  incomplete  without  a  study  of  man.  Educative 
means  should  represent  the  summum  bonum  in  nature,  and  like 
more  primitive  nature,  they  should  select  the  best  for  cultivation 
and  preservation.  Here  selection  should  be  conscious  and  in- 
telligently purposive. 

In  addition  to  merely  selecting  the  best  traits  and  increasing 
their  power  through  wise  cultivation,  the  school  should  set  up 
conscious  ideals  toward  which  the  efforts  of  the  school  in  co- 
operation with  the  individual  are  to  be  directed.  By  this  means 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RECAPITULATION         89 

the  school  becomes  the  highest  instrument  of  evolution.  By  this 
means  short  circuits  are  produced  and  the  individual  is  assisted 
without  danger  and  in  the  most  economical  method  to  higher 
planes.  The  doctrine"  of  recapitulation  teaches  how  we  may 
conserve  the  best,  eliminate  the  undesirable,  and  lead  to  higher 
and  higher  development.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  promise  and  of 
'hope! 

Immutability  of  Mental  Laws. — The  theory  of  recapitulation 
re-enforces  the  idea  that  natural  laws  prevail  in  the  mental  world 
as  in  the  physical.  The  popular  mind  in  general  has  become 
accustomed  to  regarding  physical  occurrences  as  the  result  of 
natural  laws.  The  idea  of  chance  and  superstitions  regarding 
supernatural  physical  events  are  largely  displaced  by  rational 
ideas  of  cause  and  effect.  But  scientific  intelligence  has  not 
become  so  general  regarding  biological  facts  and  changes,  and 
still  less  so  concerning  mental  phenomena.  It  is  highly  import- 
ant that  growth  processes,  both  physical  and  psychical,  should 
be  understood  as  phenomena  which  are  absolutely  conditioned 
by  lawrs  as  immutable  as  those  governing  the  falling  of  a  stone. 
It  is  only  since  a  knowledge  of  the  absolute  relation  between 
causes  and  effects  has  come  to  be  understood  and  heeded  in 
medicine  that  a  science  of  healing  has  been  made  possible.  Until 
it  was  accepted  without  reservation  the  physician  was  not  much 
more  than  the  "medicine  man"  dealing  in  charms,  incantations, 
and  sorcery.  Until  the  same  rational  view  comes  to  obtain  con- 
cerning mental  phenomena  we  cannot  have  a  science  of  educa- 
tion, but  must  be  enthralled  by  the  veriest  quackery. 

Springs  of  Conduct. — Lloyd  Morgan1  wrote:  "It  must  not 
be  forgotten  that,  according  to  the  view  here  adopted,  all  our 
instincts  and  all  the  more  permanent  traits  of  human  character 
have  been  formed  under  the  guidance  of  natural,  individual,  and 
social  selection;  such  habits  as  were  for  the  good  of  the  species, 
crystallizing,  or  rather  organizing,  into  instincts  or  permanent 
traits  of  character;  such  as  were  detrimental  quietly  dying  out. 
Or,  again,  we  may  say  that  these  instincts  and  traits  of  character 

1  Springs  of  Conduct,  p.  260. 


90  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

have  been  formed  under  the  more  general  influence  of  the  uni- 
formity of  Nature.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  here.  The 
conception  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature  is  one  of  late  develop- 
ment; but  the  influence  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature  is  dominant 
in  every  mental  as  it  is  in  every  physical  process,  mind  being 
throughout  its  development  moulded  in  conformity  with  an 
orderly  external  sequence  of  events." 

Morgan  seeks  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  impulses  which  issue 
in  our  various  types  of  conduct.  He  also  attempts  to  trace  the 
origin  of  our  states  of  cognition,  feeling,  and  volition.  He  shows 
conclusively  that  no  act  of  conduct  is  simple,  self-initiated,  and 
complete  in  itself.  It  takes  the  doctrine  of  recapitulation  to 
explain  their  origin  and  effects.  He  writes1  that,  "just  as,  in 
the  adult,  impressions  of  sensation  or  relation  recall  faint  repre- 
sentations of  other  similar  impressions  acquired  during  child- 
hood, which  we  call  memories,  so  also,  in  the  child,  impressions 
of  sensation  or  relation  will  recall  faint  representations  of  im- 
pressions acquired  during  the  childhood  of  the  race,  which  we 
may  call  inherited  memories.  Innate  ideas,  and  so-called  j 
priori  truths,  are  such  inherited  memories;  and  though  it  is 
probable  that  in  the  individual  they  are  only  developed  by  im- 
pressions gained  ultimately  through  the  senses,  just  as  characters 
written  in  invisible  ink  are  only  developed  by  the  heat  of  a  fire, 
it  may  be  taken  as  certain  that  they  are  not  acquired  by  the 
individual.  But  of  what,  it  will  now  be  asked,  are  these  ances- 
trally acquired  ideas  the  memories  ?  To  this  question,  it  seems 
to  me,  there  is  but  one  answer.  They  are  the  inherited  memories 
of  impressions  gained  proximately  or  ultimately  through  the 
medium  of  sense.  .  .  .  And  just  as  innate  ideas  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  result  of  ancestral  experience  transmitted  to  us  by 
inheritance,  so,  too,  are  innate  emotions  and  desires  the  result 
of  ancestral  experience  transmitted  to  us  by  inheritance.  In  the 
one  case,  as  in  the  other,  the  individual  education  of  experience 
educes  or  'draws'  out  those  products  of  ancestral  acquisition 
which  were  lying  latent  in  our  organization  and  in  our  character.'' 

Op.  cit.,  p.  31. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  RECAPITULATION          91 

Recapitulation  Not  Fatalistic. — This  is  not  to  be  construed 
as  a  doctrine  of  fatalism,  at  least  not  in  that  tabooed  philosophical 
sense  in  which  the  individual  regards  himself  as  a  creature  of 
fate  over  which  he  has  no  control  or  guidance.  It  is  here  main- 
tained that  one's  possibilities  are  largely  determined  by  heredi- 
tary bequests,  that  nature  is  more  potent  than  nurture  in  deter- 
mining capacity,  but  the  environment  of  the  individual  and  his 
own  self-activity  largely  decide  what  advantage  shall  be  taken 
of  nature.  The  adult  individual  almost  entirely  and  the  child 
to  some  degree  even  determine  what  the  environment  shall  be. 
The  discussions  of  heredity,  instinct,  memory,  and  volition  will 
consider  this  subject  much  more  fully. 

Recapitulation,  History,  and  Prophecy. — The  study  of  recapit- 
ulation is  of  no  small  importance  in  a  philosophy  of  education. 
Though  a  study  of  phylogeny  does  not  show  that  the  individual 
recapitulates  the  whole  history  of  the  race,  yet  it  does  reveal 
analogies  and  retracement  in  the  main  features.  Because  of  the 
close  correspondence  between  ontogeny  and  phylogeny,  a  study 
of  racial  development  helps  us  to  interpret  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
even  to  predict  individual  development.  It  also  helps  us  to 
understand  better  the  meaning  of  the  many  transitory  forms  and 
psychoses  that  manifest  themselves. 

Recapitulation  Suggests  Order  of  Development. — In  the  dis- 
cussion of  instinct,  and  also  memory  and  heredity,  it  is  shown  that 
ancestral  traits  are  reproduced  in  subsequent  generations.  It  is 
a  question  of  much  importance  to  determine  the  order  in  which 
various  physical  and  mental  characteristics  arise  in  the  individ- 
ual. To  adapt  instruction  and  activity  to  the  needs  and  capaci- 
ties of  the  growing  individual  is  a  problem  of  prime  importance 
to  education.  Because  of  great  individual  variations  we  cannot 
determine  the  exact  time  of  the  development  of  any  activity,  but 
the  order  on  broad  lines  is  quite  fixed.  For  example,  we  cannot 
tell  at  what  month-  a  given  child  will  learn  to  talk,  but  w.e  know 
that  speech  is  developed  in  all  children  in  practically  the  same 
order.  Single  isolated  words  which  represent  sentences  are  first 
acquired;  nouns  are  learned  before  adjectives;  prepositions  and 


92  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

conjunctions  are  learned  late;  the  complex  sentence  is  seldom 
used  or  understood  before  the  child  goes  to  school;  walking  is 
usually  acquired  before  talking;  speech  and  right-handedness 
develop  together.  Large  muscles  develop  before  finer  ones; 
perception  and  memory  are  well  developed  before  reasoning; 
feelings  develop  before  emotions;  the  child  is  will-less  and  un- 
moral for  a  long  time  after  birth,  though  memory  and  perception 
are  very  acute,  etc. 

Larval  Stages  Must  Precede  Higher. — The  normal  development 
of  each  stage  of  existence  is  necessary  for  the  unfolding  of  the 
next  stage.  It  is  well  known  that  the  tadpole's  tail  does  not  drop 
off,  but  is  absorbed  in  some  way  during  the  period  of  the  growth 
of  the  hind  legs.  It  has  been  noted  that  if  the  tail  is  cut  off  the 
frog  grows  up  a  malformed  individual.  Dr.  Hall,  carrying  the 
analogy  into  all  human  development,  regards  it  as  necessary  for 
the  child  to  pass  through  certain  stages  of  physical  and  mental 
development  which  will  not  persist  through  life  but  will  be 
moulted  after  having  subserved  their  purpose.  Hence  his  oft- 
quoted  expression:  "In  education  don't  cut  off  the  tadpole's 
tail."  Sedgwick  1  lends  evidence  from  his  biological  studies  to 
the  same  view.  He  says:  "Ancestral  stages  of  structure  are 
only  retained  in  so  far  as  they  are  useful  to  the  free-growing 
organism,  i.  e.,  to  the  larva  in  its  free  development.  The  only 
functionless  structures  which  are  preserved  in  development  are 
those  which  at  some  time  or  another  have  been  of  use  to  the 
organism  during  its  development  after  they  have  ceased  to  be 
so  to  the  present  adult." 

From  this  we  may  learn  that  just  as  the  beautiful  butterfly 
must  be  preceded  by  the  larva  and  the  pupa,  so  the  mature 
stages  of  human  life  develop  out  of  lower  and  more  primitive 
stages.  Just  as  we  are  certain  that  the  pupa  will  develop  into 
the  butterfly  if  provided  with  suitable  environment,  so  we  may 
rest  assured  that  suitable  environment  will  mature  the  larval 
mental  and  moral  stages;  primitive  forms  will  be  moulted  and 
the  individual  will  emerge  full-fledged,  with  powers  complete 

1  Quarterly  Journal  Mic.  Sci.,  1894,  36  :  35. 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RECAPITULATION         93 

as  in  all  others  of  normal  development.  On  the  other  hand, 
just  as  underfeeding  may  dwarf  the  developing  bee  or  plant, 
so  undernutrition,  physical  or  mental,  may  produce  life-long 
malformations  in  the  human  being. 

Preparatory  Stages  in  Child  Development. — Normal  young 
children  are  full  of  animal  life,  and  very  little  reflective  and  not 
at  all  religious.  In  fact,  we  may  say  that  ideally  their  growth 
should  be  that  of  a  healthy  animal.  Spirituality  will  appear 
later  if  the  child  has  developed  a  sound  physical  nature.  Chil- 
dren are  little  savages  and  this  should  not  alarm  us.  They  will 
emerge  from  savagery  to  sedate  civilization  in  due  time  if  we 
simply  afford  them  an  opportunity  to  work  their  way  upward 
as  the  savage  was  obliged  to  do.  Normal  children  represent  the 
very  acme  of  egoism  and  selfishness.  They  even  resort  to  lying 
and  fighting  to  obtain  their  selfish  ends.  Crotchety  people  who 
never  passed  through  childhood  naturally  and  who  do  not  under- 
stand through  study  about  epochs  of  development  misinterpret 
the  actions  of  the  child  and  denominate  him  mean,  sinful, 
wicked,  and  foredoomed.  Could  they  but  understand  the 
difference  between  the  child  and  the  adult  and  did  they  but  know 
that  egoism  properly  developed  is  the  only  means  of  altruism, 
they  would  discipline  children  with  far  different  measures.  They 
ought  to  know  that  to  repress  unduly  the  child's  egoism  and  his 
instincts  of  pugnacity  would  as  effectually  make  a  life-long  weak- 
ling of  him  as  that  to  save  the  caterpillar  from  struggles  to  secure 
freedom  from  the  cocoon  would  forever  destroy  its  chances  of 
becoming  a  butterfly,  or  that  to  break  the  shell  for  the  hatching 
chick  would  probably  cause  its  death.  Could  high-school 
teachers  only  realize  that  the  restlessness,  instability,  and  even 
waywardness,  which  nervous,  fretful  teachers  so  much  deplore, 
are  the  very  signs  which  betoken  fulness  and  abundance  of  life 
into  which  pupils  are  struggling  to  emerge,  they  would  assume 
a  sympathetic,  directive  attitude  instead  of  the  repressive  meas- 
ures of  the  martinet. 

Various  undesirable  traits  often  appear  in  more  or  less  marked 
degrees  in  children  and  youth,  e.  g.,  teasing  and  bullying,  preda- 


94  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

tory  traits,  fighting,  and  running  away,  which  cause  the  unwise 
teacher  to  give  way  to  despair,  thinking  that  such  traits  indicate 
an  evil  future.  Could  he  but  know  that  these  are  normal  traits 
and  that  there  will  be  a  moulting  period  from  which  the  individual 
will  emerge  devoid  of  the  lower  preparatory  characteristics,  he 
would  have  less  cause  for  anxiety  and  be  more  able  to  deal  in- 
telligently with  given  periods.  A  knowledge  of  the  facts  of 
recapitulation  should  make  teachers  much  more  intelligently 
sympathetic  with  child  growth  and  development.  The  teacher 
is  eager  and  anxious  to  impress  great  truths  upon  the  child 
mind  and  at  the  earliest  moment.  He  wishes  to  make  men  and 
women  immediately  of  the  boys  and  girls.  He  is  not  content 
to  wait.  But  nature  has  her  own  way.  The  teacher  cannot 
force  growth.  Nature  abhors  precocity.  The  unintelligent 
teacher  becomes  discouraged  with  nature's  ways.  If  he  could 
only  understand,  his  discouragement  would  be  dispelled  and 
his  hopes  run  high.  He  would  know  that  what  has  taken  aeons 
to  develop  will  not  easily  be  aborted.  The  teacher  is  not  even 
permitted  to  plant  the  most  potent  seeds  of  ability  and  char- 
acter. Those  are  hereditary  endowments.  The  teacher's  busi- 
ness is  to  recognize  signs  of  their  germination  and  then  to  provide 
the  best  means  for  their  normal  unfoldment.  To  force  growth 
produces  premature  decay;  to  retard,  causes  arrest  or  degenera- 
tion. The  main  business  of  the  educator  during  the  first  few 
years  of  the  child's  life  is  to  provide  suitable  conditions 
for  him  to  come  into  possession  of  his  rightful  hereditary  en- 
dowment. 

Maj.  J.  W.  Powell,  in  describing  man's  progress,1  has  stated 
the  idea  as  follows:  "Every  child  is  born  destitute  of  things 
possessed  in  manhood,  which  distinguish  him  from  the  lower 
animals.  Of  all  industries  he  is  artless;  of  all  institutions  he  is 
lawless;  of  all  languages  he  is  speechless;  of  all  philosophies  he 
is  opinionless;  of  all  reasoning  he  is  thoughtless;  but  arts, 
institutions,  languages,  opinions  and  mentations  he  acquires  as 
the  years  go  by  from  childhood  to  manhood.  In  all  those 

1  From  Barbarism  to  Civilization,  p.  97. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   RECAPITULATION          95 

respects  the  new-born  babe  is  hardly  the  peer  of  the  new-born 
beast;  but  as  the  years  pass,  ever  and  ever  he  exhibits  his 
superiority  in  all  of  the  great  classes  of  activities,  until  the 
distance  by  which  he  is  separated  from  the  brute  is  so  great  that 
his  realm  of  existence  is  in  another  kingdom  of  nature." 

Russell  has  said:1  "The  human  infant  is,  in  truth,'  much 
more  on  a  par  with  the  lowly  marsupials,  the  kangaroo  and 
opossum,  and  requires  for  a  longer  period  even  than  they  the 
maternal  contact,  the  warmth  and  shelter  of  the  mother's  arms. 
And  not  only  does  man  thus  begin  life  at  the  very  bottom  of  the 
ladder,  but  he  'crawls  to  maturity'  at  a  slower  pace  by  far  than 
any  of  the  animal  species.  Long  before  he  reaches  manhood 
most  of  the  brute  contemporaries  and  playmates  of  his  infant 
years  will  have  had  their  day,  and  declined  into  decrepitude  or 
died  of  old  age." 

The  Child  Not  a  Miniature  Adult. — Though  human,  the  child 
possesses  at  birth  and  for  a  long  period  subsequent  many  traits, 
physical  and  psychical,  that  are  so  different  from  those  he  will 
possess  when  mature  that  they  might  equally  well  be  possessed 
by  the  lower  animals.  It  was  previously  noted  that  during  pre- 
natal life  for  a  long  time  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the  embryo 
from  those  of  the  lower  animals.  Even  at  birth  the  bodily  pro- 
portions are  very  different  from  what  they  will  be  in  adult  life. 
The  body  and  arms  are  long,  the  legs  are  short,  the  head  vastly 
larger  in  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  body  than  it  will  be  later. 
Although  the  head  is  very  large,  the  frontal  portion  is  relatively 
undeveloped,  resembling  the  lower  races  or  even  the  simians. 
If  the  body  possessed  the  same  proportions  at  maturity  as  in 
infancy,  it  would  look  like  a  monstrosity.  The  nervous  system 
is  very  immature  at  birth.  The  frontal  lobe  is  not  only  small, 
but  the  medullation  of  the  cells  is  very  incomplete  and  the 
association  fibres  necessary  for  relational  thinking  are  almost 
entirely  wanting.  Not  for  a  month  after  birth  do  the  associa- 
tion areas  of  the  brain  begin  to  be  medullated,  and  even  at 
three  months  they  are  relatively  unmedullated. 

'Introduction  to  Haskell's  Child  Observations,  p.  xix. 


96  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

'"'Psychically  the  child  is  not  a  miniature  adult  either.  Intel- 
lectually and  morally  he  lives  in  a  realm  long  ago  passed  over 
by  his  parents  and  teachers.  Furthermore  they  have  so  com- 
pletely moulted  their  childhood  traits  that  they  would  not  recog- 
nize themselves  if  an  exact  reproduction  of  their  child  life  could 
be  furnished  them.  The  adult  is  prone  to  judge  the  child  mind 
from  his  own  adult  plane  of  thought  and  action.  Consequently 
every  action  of  the  child  is  judged  by  such  motives  as  govern  the 
adult.  The  child,  however,  lives,  moves,  and  has  his  being  in  a 
realm  quite  apart  from  that  of  the  adult.  If  the  child  is  to  be 
wisely  guided  it  can  only  be  through  a  sympathetic  understand- 
ing of  the  given  stage  of  development  and  its  relation  to  what 
precedes  and  what  follows. 

General  Order  of  Unfoldment. — In  a  general  way,  the  indi- 
vidual traverses  mentally  a  road  similar  to  that  passed  over  by 
the  race.  The  earliest  manifestations  of  mental  life  in  the 
human  infant  seem  to  be  mere  sensory  pleasure-pain  reactions 
to  stimuli  such  as  are  exhibited  by  low  forms  of  animal  life. 
They  gradually  develop  into  higher,  more  discriminative  stages, 
the  senses  become  more  accurate,  the  child  becomes  imitative, 
but  still  is  not  strongly  reflective,  is  selfish,  uncontrolled,  etc. 
Gradually  it  becomes  more  imaginative,  reflective,  volitional, 
social,  and  ethical.  This  briefest  possible  sketch  represents  in 
a  general  way  the  course  of  racial  development  as  well  as  indi- 
vidual unfoldment.  The  order  of  functioning  of  the  various 
senses  in  the  individual  is  essentially  the  same  as  we  find  in 
viewing  the  ascending  zoological  scale. 

The  senses  first  to  awaken  in  both  cases  are  the  tactile  and 
chemical  senses,  i.  e.,  touch,  taste,  smell,  and  hunger.  These 
are  most  fundamental  in  self-preservation.  Sight  and  hearing 
in  the  phylogenetic  series  were  long  in  developing  and  slow 
in  attaining  perfection.  The  new-born  babe  is  deaf  and  blind 
for  some  time,  and  these  senses  are  slow  in  maturing.  The 
development  of  touch  as  compared  with  sight  and  hearing  is 
suggestive  for  education.  The  child  must  have  abundant  op- 
portunity to  touch,  "feel,"  and  handle  things  and  gain  "first- 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   RECAPITULATION          97 

hand"  knowledge  if  he  is  to  awaken  normally.  Note  what  the 
blind  and  deaf  can  do  by  touch,  if  only  given  an  opportunity. 

Ear  before  Eye  in  Language. — In  race  evolution  the  ear 
became  an  instrument  for  language  acquisition  long  before  the 
eye.  Until  long  past  the  Homeric  age  all  language  was  trans- 
mitted by  word  of  mouth  and  the  ear  was  the  receiving  organ. 
Writing  and  reading  are  decidedly  modern  accomplishments. 
Man  has  only  recently  found  it  necessary  to  view  things  minutely 
and  by  artificial  light.  Consequently  the  eye  is  still  ill-adjusted 
to  the  new  order  of  life.  A  study  of  the  child's  eye  shows  that 
here  ontogeny  retraces  phylogeny.  How  poorly  the  babe  con- 
trols the  finer  adjustments  and  co-ordinations  may  be  seen  by 
watching  any  helpless  babe  of  a  few  hours  or  days  old.  The 
two  eyes  do  not  move  together  and  they  are  very  unco-ordinated. 
The  child  on  entering  school  at  six  still  has  difficulty  in  focusing 
his  eyes  upon  minute  objects  like  fine  print.  Unfortunately  \ve 
have  thought  that  book  study  was  the  very  best  means  of  mental 
development.  We  are  learning  better  and  have  also  learned  to 
free  the  immature  eye  from  over-exertion  and  to  protect  it  against 
almost  certain  disability  consequent  upon  its  premature  use. 
That  the  ear  should  be  the  means  of  early  language  acquisition, 
however,  we  have  been  very  tardy  to  appreciate.  Teachers 
must  understand  that  little  children  to  be  taught  economically 
and  effectively  must  be  taught  orally.  The  child  begins  to 
read  after  six  or  more  years  of  hearing  language.  For  five  or 
six  years  more  he  cannot  and  should  not  read  to  learn  very  much, 
but  should  master  the  art  of  learning  to  read.  His  period  of 
learning  to  hear  is  comparatively  short,  and  the  time  of  hearing 
to  learn  appears  very  early.  These  facts  should  be  very  signifi- 
cant to  every  teacher  of  children. 

Utility  as  an  Incentive  to  Development. — Psychologists  assert 
that  the  purpose  of  sensation  is  to  stimulate  action;  that  every 
sensation  tends  to  awaken  its  appropriate  response.  A  study 
of  lower  forms  of  life  and  of  primitive  man  reveals  the  close  cor- 
respondence between  sensation  and  muscular  response  and  the 
meagre  power  of  inhibition.  The  child  is  similarly  endowed  to 


98  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

a  marked  degree.  Primitive  man  did  not  acquire  perceptions 
merely  for  the  sake  of  hoarding  them;  neither  were  they  for  his 
improvement  in  the  abstract.  He  acquired  knowledge  that  he 
might  reproduce  it  in  action — in  making  something  or  in  doing 
something.  Note  the  identical  tendency  in  the  child.  How 
eager  he  is  to  learn  provided  he  expects  to  use  that  knowledge. 
Moreover,  he  must  foresee  immediate  use.  Only  as  the  race 
grew  older  did  man  become  provident  against  the  rainy  day  and 
acquire  for  the  sake  of  possible  contingencies.  Only  as  the 
child  approaches  manhood's  estate  does  he  begin  to  take  pleas- 
ure in  acquiring  for  more  remote  use.  It  might  be  added  here 
incidentally  that  the  race  never  acquires  or  learns  without 
seeing  the  utility  of  so  doing.  Only  pedantic  school-masters 
argue  for  acquiring  knowledge  for  knowledge's  sake,  or  for  an 
abstract  discipline.  These  deeply  implanted  race  instincts 
should  be  respected.  Ideally  we  should  never  require  a  child  to 
learn  an  atom  of  knowledge  unless  it  can  be  made  to  appeal  to 
him  as  worth  while.  Otherwise  we  are  proceeding  entirely 
counter  to  a  most  fundamental  law  of  nature. 

Order  of  Motor  and  Mental  Activities. — The  relative  order  of 
the  development  of  manual  and  mental  activities  corroborates 
in  a  striking  way  the  law  of  recapitulation.  The  race  was  for  a 
vast  length  of  time  engaged  in  manual  labor.  In  fact,  the  great 
majority  of  mankind  still  toil  with  the  hands.  The  life  interests 
of  humanity  demand  these  activities.  Success  as  a  result  of 
headwork  in  an  office  or  in  the  invention  of  machinery  is  of 
recent  origin.  Anthropology  and  history  show  that  primitive 
man  enjoyed  bodily  activity — not  necessarily  the  drudgery  of 
work,  but  the  chase,  warfare,  and  bodily  contests.  Mankind  in 
general  would  prefer  bodily  activity  to  mental  if  it  only  paid  as 
well. 

In  the  child  we  see  the  racial  order  retraced.  What  normal 
child  prefers  a  stuffy  school-room  and  books  to  work  on  the 
farm  with  tools,  or  the  most  menial  kinds  of  manual  service? 
Children's  spontaneous  plays  (which  are  their  work)  are  always 
chosen  from  among  manual  activities.  My  children  saw,  plane, 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  RECAPITULATION          99 

fashion  all  sorts  of  implements,  vehicles,  circuses  and  shows; 
sew,  make  doll  clothes,  etc. ;  but  they  plan  little  intellectual  work 
which  does  not  have  manual  activity  as  a  basis.  Ask  children 
under  ten  what  they  would  like  to  be  and  they  almost  invariably 
answer,  a  drayman,  a  carpenter,  a  farmer,  a  wood-sawyer,  a 
bricklayer,  a  paper-carrier,  a  dressmaker,  a  cook,  a  gardener, 
etc.  Even  children  of  professional  men  choose  such  vocations. 
The  occupations  in  their  environment  have  made  little  impres- 
sion upon  them,  and  that  of  a  negative  sort. 

When  shall  we  learn  that  the  child  is  right  in  these  things? 
Give  a  child  a  few  tools,  an  opportunity  to  work  in  the  garden 
(with  you,  of  course),  allow  him  to  split  and  pile  wood;  wash 
dishes,  cook,  dust  the  floors,  mow  the  lawn,  or  help  on  the  farm, 
and  you  find  a  responsive  chord  at  once.  Properly  directed, 
given  under  conditions  not  to  make  it  repugnant,  and  allowed 
to  be  apparently  spontaneous,  manual  work  will  appeal  to  any 
healthy  boy  or  girl.  Even  in  the  high  schools  and  colleges, 
students  have  not  ceased  to  prefer  manual  activities  to  mental. 
Compare  their  enthusiasm  over  foot-ball  with  that  for  mathe- 
matics! And  the  foot-ball  is  not  play  either.  No  body  of  stu- 
dents is  quite  so  enthusiastic  over  prescribed  tasks  as  are  engineer- 
ing students.  Without  doubt,  much  of  their  enthusiasm  is 
created  through  the  element  of  manual  work  which  always  leads 
to  the  making  of  something.  A  better  recognition  of  the  place 
of  the  manual  arts  and  crafts  in  all  grades  of  school  work  is  much 
needed.  To  afford  them  a  proper  place  in  the  lower  grades, 
especially,  is  imperative.  Unfortunately  we  study  how  to  keep 
children  out  of  the  very  things  they  are  just  spoiling  to  do. 

Spencer's  Views  on  Recapitulation  and  Education. — Spencer 
was  thoroughly  committed  to  the  idea  that  "the  education  of 
the  child  must  accord  both  in  mode  and  arrangement  with  the 
education  of  mankind  as  considered  historically;  or  in  other 
words,  the  genesis  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  must  follow 
the  same  course  as  the  genesis  of  knowledge  in  the  race."  Again, 
he  wrote  that  "education  should  be  a  repetition  of  civilization 
in  little.  It  is  alike  probable  that  the  historical  sequence  was, 


TOO  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

in  its  main  outlines,  a  necessary  one;  and  that  the  causes  which 
determined  it  apply  to  the  child  as  to  the  race."  l 

Sense  Awakening  before  Reflection.— In  the  child,  as  in  the 
race,  the  senses  are  alert  long  before  the  higher  powers  of  asso- 
ciation have  developed  to  any  extent.  For  long  ages  the  race 
lived  a  life  rilled  with  simple  sensory-motor  reactions.  Hunger 
was  felt  and  means  were  employed  to  satisfy  it.  This  done, 
effort  ceased.  The  demands  of  the  morrow  were  not  considered 
until  that  time  came.  Inventions  were  not  wrought  out.  The 
forces  of  nature  were  observed,  but  few  means  of  utilizing  them 
were  devised.  From  lack  of  relational  insight  such  as  was 
necessary  to  connect  the  expansive  force  of  steam  and  the  action 
of  a  lever,  the  secrets  of  nature  were  long  unguessed.  It  was 
only  after  long  ages  of  activity  in  the  simpler  processes  of  relating 
sensory  impressions  and  concrete  ideas  which  developed  associa- 
tion fibres  and  tracts,  that  the  abstruse  problems  of  invention, 
discovery,  and  scientific  thinking  were  made  possible.  Simi- 
larly in  the  child  we  find  at  birth  that  the  nervous  mechanisms 
necessary  for  carrying  on  abstract  thought  processes  are  entirely 
wanting.  From  lack  of  structural  maturity  the  child  is  even 
blind  and  deaf  for  some  days.  But  although  the  functions  of 
sight,  hearing,  and  all  the  other  senses  advance  with  great  rapid- 
ity, the  processes  of  rational  thinking  develop  very  tardily. 
Structurally  we  find  that  the  higher  brain  areas,  such  as  the 
frontal  lobes  and  the  association  fibres,  are  relatively  undevel- 
oped. The  frontal  lobe  must  grow  and  the  association  fibres 
must  connect  the  various  areas  before  any  high  degree  of  re- 
lational thinking  can  be  carried  on. 

Apropos  of  the  foregoing,  Hinsdale  may  be  quoted:2  "In 
his  first  years  the  Colossal  Man,  far  from  being  a  metaphysician, 
or  even  a  natural  philosopher,  lived  in  his  senses.  His  first 
course  of  study,  so  to  speak,  was  furnished  by  his  external  sur- 
roundings. It  was  nature-stuff.  Physics  was  before  meta- 
physics. The  same  is  true  of  every  individual  who  joins  the 
great  procession  that  we  call  the  race." 

1  Education,  p.  122.        2  Second  Yearbook,  National  Herbart  Society,  p.  i2a 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  RECAPITULATION        101 

The  Lengthened  Period  of  Human  Infancy. — We  have  noted 
that  the  protozoans  are  very  simple,  undifferentiated  structures 
and  that  their  psychic  life  consists  of  a  few  simple  acts  directed 
toward  food-getting.  It  remains  to  be  further  observed  that 
they  continue  practically  unchanged  from  the  time  they  enter 
upon  an  independent  existence,  as  a  result  of  division  of  the 
parent  cell,  until  they  subdivide  to  form  new  independent 
daughter  cells.  They  are  the  only  animals  with  "all-round" 
development  and  with  unchanging  form  and  capacities.  Even 
the  animals  with  rudimentary  nervous  systems  develop  little 
physically  or  mentally  during  their  round  of  existence.  Their 
actions  are  practically  all  instinctive.  As  soon  as  born  they  can 
take  care  of  themselves  as  well  as  they  ever  can.  Practically 
all  their  actions  are  predetermined  for  them  by  the  inherited 
tendencies  of  their  organism.  Such  animals  acquire  practically 
nothing  through  individual  experience.  Heredity  is  practically 
everything  for  them.  In  these  lower  orders  there  is  no  period 
of  infancy,  in  fact  there  is  no  necessity  for  it,  nor  possibility. 
Each  individual  does  just  what  its  ancestors  have  done,  in  a 
reflex,  automatic  way,  and  we  have  seen  that  its  nervous  system 
is  adapted  to  that  mode  of  existence.  The  actions  are  so  few 
and  so  simple  that  the  tendency  becomes  perfectly  ingrained  in 
the  nervous  system  before  birth. 

As  soon  as  any  form  of  life  finds  it  necessary  to  adapt  itself 
frequently  to  new  and  unusual  conditions  in  order  to  maintain 
an  existence,  individual  progress  becomes  necessary.  The 
accumulations  of  racial  experience  no  longer  suffice  to  adjust  it 
to  environing  conditions.  It  becomes  necessary  for  the  individ- 
ual to  be  able  to  continue  developing  after  birth.  The  nervous 
system,  formerly  developed  only  so  as  to  preserve  inheritance  as 
reflexes,  then  adds  other  centres  which  control  individual  adapta- 
tions. This  was  at  first  very  slow,  so  that  even  animals  like  birds 
depend  largely  upon  inherited  reactions.  Their  lives  are  ex- 
ceedingly simple  as  compared  with  that  of  the  administrator 
of  a  great  industrial,  political,  or  social  organization,  who  must 
grasp  and  evaluate  a  multitude  of  complex  relations.  In  this 


102  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

higher  stage  it  is  impossible  in  the  short  period  before  birth 
to  effect  the  organization  of  such  complex  reactions.  John 
Fiske,  who  was  the  first  to  point  out  the  significance  of  the 
period  of  infancy  in  the  evolution  of  educable  beings,  wrote: 
"Instead  of  the  power  of  doing  all  the  things  which  its  parents 
did,  it  starts  with  the  power  of  doing  only  some  few  of  them; 
for  the  rest  it  has  only  latent  capacities  which  need  to  be  brought 
out  by  its  individual  experience  after  birth.  In  other  words, 
it  begins  its  separate  life  not  as  a  matured  creature,  but  as  an 
infant  which  needs  for  a  time  to  be  watched  and  helped."  l 

In  the  ascending  scale  of  life  we  observed  a  gradually  in- 
creasing complexity  of  physical  structure,  especially  as  evidenced 
in  the  sense  organs  and  the  nervous  system;  a  gradual  evolution 
of  an  increasingly  complex  psychical  life;  and  now  we  remark 
another  correlation,  that  of  a  gradually  lengthened  period  of 
infancy.  The  chick,  though  dependent  for  protection  for  some 
time,  has  most  of  its  life  reactions  fairly  well  organized  at  birth. 
Puppies,  kittens,  and  whelps  are  much  more  helpless  for  several 
weeks  or  months,  though  they  do  not  learn  much  as  individuals. 
Anthropoid  apes  are  the  most  helpless  at  birth  of  all  non-human 
beings,  as  well  as  the  most  educable.  For  a  month  the  young 
orang  cannot  stand  alone.  It  begins  much  like  a  human  infant 
by  holding  on  to  various  objects  for  support.  Fiske  says 2  that 
the  "  man-like  apes  of  Africa  and  the  Indian  Archipelago  have 
advanced  far  beyond  the  mammalian  world  in  general.  Along 
with  a  cerebral  surface  and  an  accompanying  intelligence,  far 
greater  than  that  of  other  mammals,  these  tailless  apes  begin 
life  as  helpless  babies,  and  are  unable  to  walk,  to  feed  them- 
selves, or  to  grasp  objects  with  precision  until  they  are  two  or 
three  months  old."  At  a  corresponding  age  monkeys  have 
mastered  the  operations  of  locomotion  and  prehension. 

The  period  of  human  infancy  is  so  greatly  prolonged  that  the 
human  child  is  the  object  of  tenderest  solicitation  and  care  for 
many  years.  Even  with  all  the  care  they  receive,  about  one-third 
of  the  human  race  die  under  the  age  of  five  years.  Properly  the 

1  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  40.  2  Destiny  o/  Man,  p.  53. 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  RECAPITULATION        103 

period  of  human  infancy  extends  to  the  age  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
years,  the  age  when  it  is  possible  (though  highly  undesirable)  for 
them  to  maintain  themselves,  if  absolutely  compelled  to.  If  it 
is  held  to  include  the  entire  age  of  plasticity  and  teachableness, 
as  has  been  done  by  some  (Butler,  Fiske),  it  would  comprise  the 
period  of  adolescence  as  well.  This  would  not  be  an  erroneous 
mode  of  conceiving  it. 

Fiske  writes:1  "Infancy,  psychologically  considered,  is  the 
period  during  which  the  nerve-connections  and  correlative  ideal 
associations  necessary  for  self-maintenance  are  becoming  per- 
manently established.  Now,  this  period,  which  only  begins  to 
exist  when  the  intelligence  is  considerably  complex,  becomes 
longer  and  longer  as  the  intelligence  increases  in  complexity. 
In  the  human  race  it  is  much  longer  than  in  any  other  race  of 
mammals,  and  it  is  much  longer  in  the  civilized  man  than  in  the 
savage.  Indeed  among  the  educated  classes  of  civilized  society, 
its  average  duration  may  be  said  to  be  rather  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  since  during  all  this  time  those  who  are  to  live  by 
brain-work  are  simply  acquiring  the  capacity  to  do  so,  and  are 
usually  supported  upon  the  products  of  parental  labor."  Dr. 
Butler  says  on  the  same  point  that,  "as  our  civilization  has 
become  more  complex,  as  its  products  have  become  more 
numerous,  richer,  deeper,  and  more  far-reaching,  the  longer  we 
have  extended  that  period  of  tutelage,  until  now,  while  the 
physiological  period  of  adolescence  is  reached  in  perhaps  four- 
teen or  fifteen  years,  the  educational  period  of  dependence  is 
almost  twice  as  long.  That  is  to  say,  the  length  of  time  that  it 
takes  for  the  human  child  in  this  generation  so  to  adapt  himself 
to  his  surroundings  as  to  be  able  to  succeed  in  them,  to  conquer 
them,  and  to  make  them  his  own,  is  almost,  if  not  quite  thirty 
years.  The  education  in  the  kindergarten,  the  elementary 
school,  the  secondary  school,  the  college,  the  professional 
school,  the  period  of  apprenticeship  in  the  profession  before 
independent  practice  can  be  entered  upon,  is  in  not  a  few  cases, 
now  twenty-five,  twenty-six,  twenty-eight  or  even  thirty  years." : 

1  Cosmic  Philosophy,  II,  p.  342.  2  The  Meaning  oj  Education,  p.  12. 


io4  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Adolescence  in  this  view  is  simply  a  special  and  marked  period 
of  infancy.  Considered  either  way,  infancy  is  a  significant 
phase  in  the  development  of  an  individual.  It  was  also  a  great 
stride  in  evolution  toward  the  development  of  psychical  domina- 
tion in  the  world  as  opposed  to  brute  force. 

Thus  the  period  of  dependence,  in  a  sense  the  period  of 
infancy,  is  not  only  very  long  in  the  human  being  as  compared 
with  all  other  animals,  but  it  is  increasing  as  civilization  increases 
in  complexity.  To  live  under  conditions  of  modern  civilization 
and  become  properly  adjusted  to  them  requires  such  a  vast 
number  and  variety  of  adaptations  that  one  can  become  properly 
prepared  for  it  only  after  a  very  long  period  of  many-sided 
education.  One  may  very  properly  question  whether  the  de- 
mands of  the  present  are  not  rendering  the  complexities  so 
numerous  and  intricate  that  the  effort  toward  adjustment  is 
at  the  expense  of  proper  balance  between  physical  and  mental 
possessions.  Is  it  not  drawing  upon  nervous  energy  at  the  ex- 
pense of  bodily  ?  Has  evolution  proceeded  far  enough  to  admit 
of  such  extreme  psychical  specialization?  Or  have  sufficient 
organs  in  the  way  of  machines  and  contrivances  been  evolved 
to  sustain  the  functions  which  modern  life  has  imposed  ?  To 
have  an  intimate  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  one's  busi- 
ness or  vocation,  each  a  thousand  times  more  gigantic  and  intri- 
cate than  a  century  ago;  to  keep  up  with  the  day's  doings  in 
the  world;  to  disentangle  the  myriad  political,  commercial,  and 
social  relations  of  all  the  nations;  to  assimilate  the  world's  past 
and  to  interpret  its  present;  and  to  evolve  out  of  all  this  a  philos- 
ophy of  life;  (and  nothing  mentioned  can  be  omitted  by  the  one 
who  keeps  up  with  the  times) — to  accomplish  all  this  imposes  a 
drain  upon  nervous  and  mental  force  unexampled  in  all  the 
history  of  evolution. 

Fiske  has  made  the  striking  point  that  the  development  of 
society  was  directly  dependent  upon  the  initiation  and  prolonga- 
tion of  a  period  of  infancy.  All  political  and  social  institutions 
are  mainly  an  outgrowth  of  the  family.  The  institution  of  the 
family  was  made  necessary  and  possible  through  the  helpless- 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF  RECAPITULATION        105 

ness  of  offspring.  Their  helplessness  aroused  mutual  feelings 
of  sympathy  in  parents  and  older  offspring,  resulting  in  longer 
periods  of  close  companionship.  Finally  not  only  family  inter- 
ests and  bonds  were  developed,  but  also  community  relationships . 
An  examination  of  the  genesis  and  growth  of  morality  reveals 
also  that  morality  is  concomitant  with  the  growth  of  community 
life.  Incipient  morality  is  first  observed  in  the  social  animals, 
and  it  develops  progressively  through  the  lowest  human  tribal 
organization  up  to  the  highest  altruistic  communities.  Here 
are  two  important  directions  in  the  highest  education  of  man 
accomplished  through  the  period  of  long  infancy.  Current 
history  as  well  as  evolution  chronicles  the  same  lesson.  Dis- 
cords, divorces,  and  separations  are  astonishingly  more  frequent 
in  households  where  no  children  have  cemented  the  bonds  that 
first  produced  the  union.  Childless  people  are  usually  devoid  of 
many  feelings  of  sympathy  that  actuate  persons  who  have  chil- 
dren. This  is  especially  true  where  the  parents  were  "only" 
children  and  reared  in  affluence.  Thus  since  the  state  and  all 
higher  forms  of  institutional  life  rest  upon  the  family,  the  child 
should  become  the  centre  of  regard  in  our  noblest  efforts  to  up- 
lift humanity.  Through  all  his  years  of  plasticity  the  wisest 
nurture  should  be  afforded  that  will  assist  nature  in  unfolding 
what  is  best  in  the  child  and  extend  his  evolution  to  the  highest 
point  possible. 

Besides  the  best  physical  and  physiological  inheritance  to 
which  the  child  is  entitled  and  which  the  best  of  nutrition  and 
care  should  develop  undiminished,  there  is  a  social  inheritance 
which  is  the  birthright  of  every  human  individual.  This  social 
inheritance  is  bequeathed  to  posterity  not  in  the  form  of  fixed 
structures  and  reactions,  but  in  the  works  of  man  as  represented 
in  institutions,  discoveries,  arts,  sciences,  traditions,  and  beliefs. 
Butler  says  these  spiritual  possessions  "may  be  variously  classi- 
fied, but  they  certainly  are  at  least  five-fold.  The  child  is 
entitled  to  his  scientific  inheritance,  to  his  literary  inheritance, 
to  his  aesthetic  inheritance,  to  his  institutional  inheritance,  and  to 
his  religious  inheritance.  Without  them  he  cannot  become  a 


io6  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

truly  educated  or  a  cultivated  man."1  He  further  maintains  that, 
"The  period  of  infancy  is  to  be  used  by  civilized  men  for  adapta- 
tion along  these  five  lines,  in  order  to  introduce  the  child  to  his 
intellectual  and  spiritual  inheritance,  just  as  the  shorter  period 
of  infancy  in  the  lower  animals  is  used  to  develop,  to  adjust,  and 
to  co-ordinate  those  physical  actions  which  constitute  the  higher 
instincts,  and  which  require  the  larger,  the  more  deeply  fur- 
rowed, and  the  more  complex  brain.  That,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
is  the  lesson  of  biology,  of  physiology,  and  of  psychology,  on  the 
basis  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  regarding  the  meaning  and  the 
place  of  education  in  modern  life."  2 

Recapitulation  and  the  Relative  Value  of  Knowledge. — In 
seeking  an  answer  to  the  question,  "What  knowledge  is  of  most 
worth?"  Spencer  turned  to  race  history.  He  assumed  that 
knowledge  to  be  most  fundamental  which  was  first  devel- 
oped by  the  race  and  therefore  of  most  worth  at  all  times. 
This  elemental  knowledge  he  finds  to  be  that  which  directly 
ministers  to  self-preservation.  "That  next  after  direct  self- 
preservation  comes  the  indirect  self-preservation  which  consists 
in  acquiring  the  means  of  living,  none  will  question."  Third  in 
order  come  "those  activities  which  have  for  their  end  the  rearing 
and  discipline  of  offspring.  .  .  .  That  a  man's  industrial  func- 
tions mustbe  considered  before  his  parental  ones,  is  manifest  from 
the  fact  that,  speaking  generally,  the  discharge  of  the  parental 
functions  is  made  possible  only  by  the  previous  discharge  of  the 
industrial  ones."  Next  in  order  he  places  "Those  activities 
which  are  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  proper  social  and 
political  relations."  This  he  regards  as  following  the  phyloge- 
netic  order,  "As  the  family  comes  before  the  State  in  order  of 
time — as  the  bringing  up  of  children  is  possible  before  the  State 
exists,  or  when  it  has  ceased  to  be,  whereas  the  State  is  rendered 
possible  only  by  the  bringing  up  of  children;  it  follows  that  the 
duties  of  the  parent  demand  closer  attention  than  those  of  the 
citizen."  The  final  group  of  race  activities  which  determine 
the  relative  values  of  instruction  for  the  individual  are  "Those 

1  The  Meaning  oj  Education,  p.  19.  2  Ibid.,  p.  31. 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   RECAPITULATION       107 

miscellaneous  activities  which  make  up  the  leisure  part  of  life, 
devoted  to  the  gratification  of  the  tastes  and  feelings."  1 

The  foregoing  furnishes  a  fairly  good  order  of  emphasis  of 
different  kinds  of  knowledge.  Of  course,  each  is  intricately 
interwoven  with  alt  the  others,  but  the  order  suggested  is 
practically  coincident  with  the  order  of  the  development  of  the 
individual's  interests  in  the  various  activities.  That  the  types 
of  knowledge  taught  in  the  schools  should  harmonize  with  the 
natural  rise  of  interests  is  sound  doctrine.  At  every  stage  the 
school  should  be  correlated  with  life's  dominant,  legitimate 
interests. 

Many  more  educational  applications  suggested  by  embryology  will  be  stated 
in  the  chapters  on  "From  Fundamental  to  Accessory,"  "Instinct,"  "Correlations 
between  Mind  and  Body,"  "Sensory  Education,"  and  "Motor  Education." 
The  next  chapter  deals  with  a  special  phase  of  application  in  the  "Culture 
Enochs  Theory." 

1  Spencer,  Education,  pp.  32,  33. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE    CULTURE    EPOCHS    THEORY    AND    EDUCATION 

Meaning  of  Culture  Epochs. — Various  attempts  have  been 
made  to  map  out  the  periods  of  child  development  and  to  study 
them  in  the  light  of  corresponding  periods  of  racial  develop- 
ment. Exponents  of  the  "  Culture  Epochs  Theory  "  assume  that 
the  particular  kinds  of  environment,  experience,  or  education 
which  the  race  received  and  which  produced  particular  develop- 
ment in  the  race  at  certain  periods  should  produce  the  same 
sort  of  development  in  the  individual  at  corresponding  periods. 
It  is  also  assumed  that  the  child  must  retrace  each  of  the  phyloge- 
netic  stages  in  order  to  develop  normally.  Hence  a  study  of 
the  race  has  been  made  to  determine  what  kind  of  culture 
materials  contributed  to  its  progress  from  each  given  stage  to 
the  next  higher.  This  is  done  in  order  to  give  the  child  the 
same  sort  of  material  at  a  corresponding  period.  During  a 
certain  epoch  it  is  known  that  man  was  evolving  myths,  legends, 
and  folk-tales.  These  are  believed  to  have  been  the  culture 
materials  which  enabled  the  race  to  develop  into  a  higher  stage. 
Different  interests  and  activities  occupied  the  dominant  place 
at  different  periods.  At  one  period  it  was  war,  at  another  the 
hunt  and  chase,  at  another  the  beginnings  of  agriculture,  etc. 
The  mental  life  as  manifested  in  speech,  song,  poetry,  and 
literature  also  corresponded  to  dominant  interests.  Thus  dif- 
ferent culture  materials  are  supposed  to  have  been  utilized  at 
different  epochs  of  race  history.  Hence  the  term  "Culture- 
epochs."  It  is  thus  seen  that  we  may  speak  of  the  pastoral 
epoch,  the  nomadic  period,  the  stone  age,  the  bronze  age,  the 
hunting  stage,  the  agricultural  epoch,  the  urban  period,  etc. 
Herbartian  Applications. — The  Herbartian  school  of  education- 
ists especially  have  attached  much  value  to  the  culture  epochs 
theory  of  education.  They  have  arranged  very  definite  pro- 

108 


CULTURE   EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  109 


gram  of  study  which  they  believe  to  be  fitted  to  afford  the 
child  the  specific  culture  necessary  to  assist  him  wisely  into  the 
next  stage  of  growth.  The  following  outline  scheme  represents 
the  ideas  of  Professor  Rein,  of  Jena,  as  to  the  proper  sequence 
and  arrangement  of  materials  for  the  German  Yolks-school.1 


SCHOOL 
YEAR 

MATERIALS  OF  INSTRUCTION 

GENERAL   CHARACTER   OF 
EPOCHS 

I 

Folklore  and  Fairy  Tales 

Mythical    and    Heroic 
Mind 

2 

Robinson  Crusoe 

3 

Sacred 

Projane 

Patriarchs  and 
Moses 

Thuringian 
Tales 

4 

Judges  and 
Kings 

Nibelungen 
Tales 

5 

Life  of  Christ 

Christianizing  and 
Kaiser  Period 

Mediaeval  State  build- 
ing 
Historic  Mind 

6 

Life  of  Christ 

Kaiser  Period 

7 

Paul 

Reformation 

Social  and  Political 
Development.  Scien- 
tific and  Philosophic 
Mind 

8 

Luther 

Nationalization 

Dr.  Otto  Beyer  has  set  forth,2  as  shown  below,  the  chief 
stages  of  human  development,  when  viewed  from  the  side  of 
man's  reaction  to  his  varying  environment.  The  instructional 
material  which  would  be  desirable  for  the  child  representing 
each  epoch  is  also  indicated. 


SCHOOL 
DIVISIONS 

RACIAL   EPOCHS 

CULTURE   MATERIAL 

I 

The  Stage  of  the  Hunter 

Robinson  Crusoe 

2 

The  Nomadic  Stage 

History    of    the    Patri- 
archs 

3 

Agricultural  Epoch 

History  of  the  Kings  and 
Judges 

4 

Epochs  of  Primal  Division  of  Labor, 
Development  of  Manual  Trades, 
Retail  Trade,  and  Small  Cities 

German  Middle  Ages 

5 

Metropolitan  Life,  Wholesale  Trade, 
Great  Industries 

Modern  History  of  Ger- 
many 

1  Van  Liew,  First  Yearbook  of  the  National  Herbart  Society,  p.  99.     2  Ib.,  p.  97. 


no  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Professor  Ziller,  in  his  practice  school  at  the  University  of 
Leipsic,  used  the  following  materials  and  arrangement  as  the 
centre  of  instruction  in  each  of  the  eight  years  of  the  Volks- 
school:  ist  year,  The  Epic;  Folklore  Stories  from  Grimm; 
2nd  year,  Robinsoe  Crusoe;  3rd  year,  History  of  the  Patriarchs; 
Heroic  Age  of  Germany  and  Thuringian  Nibelungen  Myths; 
4th  year,  Heroic  Times  of  the  Hebrews;  Moses  and  the  Judges; 
History  of  the  German  Kings;  5th  year,  David  and  the  Kings 
of  Israel;  History  of  Germany  from  Barbarism  to  Rudolph  von 
Hapsburg;  6th  year,  Jesus  and  the  Prophets;  History  of  the 
Reformation  and  Frederick  the  Great;  yth  year,  History  of  the 
Apostles;  Secular  History  of  Antiquity  ;  8th  year,  Final  Review 
of  the  Catechism;  The  Reformation. 

Professor  Van  Liew  writes  1  that:  " Beginning  with  the  third 
year  a  second  series  of  material  drawn  from  profane  history 
(that  of  the  fatherland)  is  co-ordinated  with  the  sacred  series. 
In  these  thought-wholes  of  material  the  pupil  traverses,  corre- 
sponding to  his  own  development,  the  chief  periods  in  the 
development  of  mankind."  Ziller  wrote:  "All  history,  and  in 
fact  the  entire  cultural  development  both  of  a  single  people  and 
of  all  mankind,  is  stored  up  chiefly  in  the  masterpieces  of  lan- 
guage; and  the  chief  epochs  of  this  development  quite  accord 
with  the  chief  stages  in  the  individual  development  of  the 
pupil.  Hence  the  mental  development  of  the  pupil  cannot  be 
furthered  better  than  by  drawing  his  mental  nourishment  from 
the  universal  products  of  culture  as  depicted  in  literature." 

Miss  Harriet  Scott,  in  Organic  Education,  outlines  a  minutely 
detailed  plan  of  work  designed  to  suit  the  varying  stages  of 
growth  recapitulated  by  the  child.  In  the  first  grades  (five  to 
six  years),  Hiawatha  is  to  be  the  core  around  which  all  instruc- 
tion and  activities  are  to  be  grouped.  Hiawatha  is  chosen 
because,2  "The  child  at  this  age  is  yet  in  the  dawning  of  his 
mental  life.  The  dominant  interest  of  this  period  of  develop- 
ment may  be  characterized  as  sense-hunger.  His  interest  is  a 
veritable  hunger  which,  to  satisfy  itself,  seizes  upon  every  fact 

1  First  Yearbook  of  the  National  Herbart  Society,  p.  85. 
*  Organic  Education,  p.  68. 


CULTURE  EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  in 

of  the  natural  and  institutional  world  that  comes  within  range 
of  his  senses. 

"In  brief,  he  begins  at  this  epoch  to  organize  his  knowledge. 
.  .  .  This  is  the  period  of  his  strongest  affection  for  all  things 
in  nature.  There  is  now  no  barrier  between  him  and  them. 
He  is  in  a  real  sense  one  with  them.  .  .  .  He  contrives  rude 
means  to  his  own  ends,  just  as  Hiawatha  devised  his  own 
implements  of  warfare  or  industry  and  the  necessary  means  of 
communication  and  of  transportation.  ...  In  this  grade  the 
nomadic  period  of  civilization  is  covered,  Hiawatha,  the  Indian 
boy,  being  the  type  of  the  period.  .  .  .  The  child  is  encouraged 
to  compare  himself  with  Hiawatha  in  respect  to  self-reliance, 
ability  to  contrive,  accuracy  of  observation,  etc.,  until  the  ideal 
has  taken  firm  root  in  his  mind  and  is  used  as  a  standard 
unconsciously." 

In  the  second  half  of  the  first  year  the  children  take  KaWu, 
the  Aryan  Boy/as  their  chief  pabulum.  "For  the  child  of  this 
grade,  the  Hiawatha  period  of  intense  curiosity,  imaginative- 
ness, and  contrivance  has  merged  into  the  period  represented  by 
Kablu,  a  stage  of  curiosity  somewhat  less  acute,  of  imagination 
somewhat  less  dominant,  and  of  contrivance  more  complex  and 
finished.  .  .  .  Kablu,  the  little  Aryan  boy,  represents  the  agri- 
cultural period  of  civilization." 

Darius,  the  Persian  boy,  forms  the  centre  and  circumference 
of  all  the  boy's  thoughts  during  the  next  half-year.  Cleon,  the 
Greek  boy,  is  brought  on  the  scene  for  grade  62;  while 
Horatius,  the  Roman  boy,  is  reserved  for  A2.  The  next  half- 
year  seems  to  be  epitomizing  history  with  gigantic  strides  and 
Wulf,  the  Saxon  boy,  is  put  on  the  scene  to  inspire  the  child  in 
63.  Gilbert,  the  French  boy,  Columbus,  Raleigh,  the  Puritans, 
all  pass  in  review,  and  by  grade  A4,  or  at  about  ten  or  eleven 
years  of  age,  the  period  of  national  development  is  reached. 
The  rest  of  life  seems  to  be  a  process  of  becoming  adjusted  to 
the  present,  since  no  new  periods  of  study  are  suggested. 

Miss  Scott  has  designed  to  arrange  the  culture  materials  so 
that  they  minister  to  the  dominant  instincts.  "Every  period 


ii2  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

studied  may  be  said  to  branch  into  three  great  trunks — nature, 
institutions,  and  art."  While  it  is  a  sound  pedagogical  pro- 
cedure for  general  guidance,  it  is  erroneous  to  suppose  that  the 
minute  correspondence  between  phylogeny  and  ontogeny  can 
be  discerned.  It  is  still  more  chimerical  to  assume  that  the 
exact  racial  culture  means  need  be  or  can  be  utilized  in  trying 
to  aid  the  struggling  individual  to  pass  through  the  various  stages 
of  metamorphosis.  New  means  must  be  devised  to  meet  new 
conditions  of  life  and  development.  This  is  the  great  law  of 
life  and  progress. 

Critical  Considerations. — Educationally  the  law  of  recapitu- 
lation has  wonderful  significance,  especially  in  relation  to  instinct, 
but  it  is  important  to  understand  it  thoroughly  before  attempting 
to  construct  details  of  school  curricula  in  accordance  with  its 
teachings.  The  theory  of  recapitulation  shows  that  the  law 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  operative  in  mental  as  well  as 
in  physical  evolution.  Race  energy  and  power  are  conserved 
in  the  individuals  comprising  the  race.  All  of  past  racial  history 
is  written  in  each  individual,  but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
the  writing  is  easily  legible.  It  is  an  exceedingly  intricate  sys- 
tem of  hieroglyphics,  which  the  various  sciences  have  only  just 
begun  to  spell  out.  It  must  not  be  expected  that  each  experi- 
ence of  all  the  myriads  of  individuals  of  past  generations  can 
be  traced  out  in  their  original  identity.  It  must  not  be  thought 
that  all  the  identities  have  been  retained. 

As  will  be  shown  in  the  chapter  on  memory,  no  experiences 
are  ever  lost,  but  they  may  lose  their  identity.  I  am  the  heir 
of  all  the  ages,  but  I  am  not  permitted  to  count  my  inheritance 
in  the  same  denominations  as  did  my  ancestors.  It  has  gone 
through  many  courses  of  exchange.  Or,  to  change  the  figure, 
each  individual  is  a  resultant  of  all  the  forces  brought  to  bear 
upon  his  ancestry  and  himself.  To  compute  or  discover  each 
factor  would  be  impossible  to  a  finite  being.  Facts  and  logic 
compel  us  to  believe  that  each  individual  epitomizes  race  history, 
i.  e.,  ontogeny  recapitulates  phylogeny.  But  it  must  be  kept 
in  mind  that  each  individual  is  a  resultant  of  forces  many  of 


CULTURE  EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  113 

which  have  operated  against  each  other,  and  consequently  may 
have  had  counterbalancing  effects.  Biologically  this  would 
mean  elimination  or  annihilation  of  various  potencies  acquired 
through  experience.  Biology  has  suggested  the  theory  of  re- 
capitulation, but  it  should  be  understood  that  the  most  careful 
study  of  embryology  fails  to  reveal  more  than  the  outlines  of 
the  course  of  development.  As  Balfour  has  written:1  "Like 
the  scholar  with  his  manuscript,  the  embryologist  has  by  a 
process  of  careful  and  critical  examination  to  determine  where 
the  gaps  are  present,  to  detect  the  later  insertions,  and  to  place 
in  order  what  has  been  misplaced." 

Recapitulation  Insufficient  to  Determine  Course  of  Study. — 
It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  doctrine  of  recapitulation  alone  is  not  a 
safe  guide  in  determining  the  detailed  materials  of  instruction 
or  its  exact  sequence.  That  the  race  was  occupied  at  a  particu- 
lar period  with  certain  ideas  or  activities  is  no  reason  for  giving 
the  child  the  same  ideas  and  activities.  The  development  of 
the  child  must  determine  these  matters.  We  have  seen  that 
the  correspondence  between  race  and  individual  development 
is  in  no  way  exact;  it  is  merely  a  general  resemblance.  The 
child  of  to-day  resembles  the  young  (not  the  adults)  of  more 
immature  races,  but  passes  beyond  them  in  his  ultimate  devel- 
opment. 

Phytogeny  and  Individual  Interests. — The  interest  which 
children  exhibit  in  fairy  tales  and  myths  is  said  to  arise  at  that 
particular  period  because  they  are  retracing  the  corresponding 
period  of  racial  history.  It  is  claimed  that  they  are  more  inter- 
ested in  these  and  can  comprehend  them  better  than  products 
of  our  own  civilization.  For  similar  reasons  history  is  taken  up 
in  a  chronological  order,  it  being  assumed  that  the  child  is 
interested  in  ancient  history  first,  and  only  lastly  in  modern 
phases.  It  is  even  claimed  that  the  study  of  science  should 
follow  the  order  of  its  discovery.  It  is  true  that  instinctive 
potentialities  determine  the  general  type  of  interest,  but  it  is 
not  true  that  the  child  can  comprehend  most  easily  that  which 

1  Quoted  by  Baldwin,  Menial  Development,  p.  28. 


ii4  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

is  most  ancient.  The  very  opposite,  indeed,  is  apt  to  be  true. 
That  which  is  remote  is  so  far  removed  from  the  realm  of  his 
experiences  that  it  finds  no  point  of  contact  in  the  child's  think- 
ing. Ancient  history  cannot  be  comprehended  by  the  child 
until  he  gets  some  background  of  present-day  experience  through 
which  to  view  the  past.  That  which  was  wrought  out  by 
primitive  peoples  may  be  the  most  difficult  for  the  child  to 
understand.  I  well  remember  my  own  attitude  of  disgust  with 
the  mythical  history  of  Greece.  It  was  only  after  understand- 
ing something  of  the  psychological  development  of  myths  that 
I  became  interested  in  reading  such  history.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  stories  of  the  Civil  War,  in  which  my  father  and 
other  relatives  had  taken  a  part,  were  always  listened  to  with 
the  most  intense  interest,  while  Jason,  Hannibal,  Pyrrhus,  and 
all  the  rest  of  those  whose  manners  were  so  strange,  were  avoided 
except  as  tasks.  As  a  student  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  I 
have  been  interested  in  the  evolution  of  the  enginery  of  war  and 
political  units,  but  as  facts  they  never  interested  me  when  a 
child.  The  child  wants  concrete  experiences  that  he  can  respond 
to  and  not  philosophy. 

I  have  asked  kindergartners  why  they  had  birch-bark  canoes, 
wigwams,  and  primitive  ploughs  for  the  children  to  study  and 
not  something  more  modern.  They  replied:  "The  child  could 
not  understand  modern  complex  things,  and  he  would  not  be 
interested  in  them.  He  must  have  more  primitive  products." 
I  have  no  objections  to  the  wigwams  and  the  savage  trinkets, 
but  I  have  to  the  principles  stated.  A  given  object  or  activity 
may  be  ever  so  "modern"  and  still  be  the  delight  of  children, 
provided  it  comes  within  their  comprehension.  A  sixteen-shot 
Winchester  rifle  is  no  more  puzzling  to  a  boy  of  ten  than  would 
be  a  cross-bow  of  savage  tribes.  A  modern  gang-plough,  a  steam 
engine,  or  an  automobile  is  as  simple  to  the  child  as  the 
rudest  modern  implements  or  those  of  the  ancient  Egyptians; 
the  modern  telephone  and  the  postal  system  are  quite  as  com- 
prehensible to  a  modern  boy  as  the  means  of  communication  in 
vogue  ten  thousand  years  ago;  in  fact,  they  are  simpler  to  him, 


CULTURE  EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  115 

because  they  deal  with  things  of  observation  and  experience. 
To  be  sure,  the  boy  does  not  comprehend  the  philosophy  of  all 
these  modern  processes — what  he  sees  are  externals.  These 
he  takes  as  matters  of  course  and  extracts  no  complexities.  The 
child  sees  things  superficially,  in  broad  outlines  only,  and 
complex  surroundings  produced  by  telephones,  telegraphs, 
trolley-cars,  and  newspapers  present  no  greater  complexities  to 
the  modern  child  than  abiding  in  a  wigwam  and  living  by 
hunting.  Children  may  be  in  homes  where  philosophy  is  dis- 
cussed, but  they  hear  it  not.  Complexities  of  life  exist  all  about 
the  child,  but  he  responds  only  to  that  for  which  his  development 
has  attuned  him.  Later  on  he  becomes  fitted  by  complexity 
of  neurological  and  psychological  development  to  vibrate  in 
harmony  with  a  more  complex  order  of  things — but  not  neces- 
sarily those  things  only  which  have  come  within  ancestral 
experience. 

Imitation  and  Interest. — I  well  remember,  when  a  child, 
trying  to  fashion  modern  mowing-machines  and  threshing- 
machines.  I  did  not  take  to  scythe-making,  or  threshing  with  a 
flail,  or  even  tramping  the  grain  out  with  the  feet.  The  fact 
is,  that  children  imitate  the  life  about  them  as  they  see  it.  The 
things  that  interest  them  are  the  things  re-enacted.  It  may  be 
foot-ball,  or  marching  to  the  sound  of  martial  music,  but  in 
either  case  they  will  have  none  but  the  most  modern  parapher- 
nalia. Nothing  but  sweaters  and  padded  knees,  swords,  guns, 
and  drums  will  answer. 

When  we  foist  upon  the  child  the  products  of  civilization  in 
the  order  in  which  they  were  developed  and  because  they  were 
so  developed,  we  are  trying  to  make  him  realize  an  adult  philoso- 
phy of  development.  Prof.  Simon  N.  Patten  l  "  points  out 
that  the  argument  often  advanced  in  behalf  of  the  culture 
epochs,  that  modern  life  is  too  complex  for  the  child  to  grasp,  and 
that  education  therefore  must  begin  with  ancient  materials  to 
get  initial  simplicity,  is  weak."  He  asserts  that  "the  sickle  is 
not  simpler  to  the  boy  than  the  harvester,  so  long  as  both  repre- 

1  Pub.  Am.  Academy  Political  and  Social  Science,  No.  136. 


n6  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

sent  to  his  mind  the  process  of  reaping.  The  same  would  be 
equally  true  of  the  most  complex  piece  of  social,  industrial,  or 
political  mechanism,  as  long  as  the  child  can  see  what  it  ac- 
complishes. The  argument  holds  good,  however,  only  so  long 
as  we  contemplate  the  mechanism  merely  in  the  performance  of 
its  function;  let  it  once  become  the  object  of  analytic  investiga- 
tion of  structure  or  of  development  and  the  case  is  reversed. 
Then  the  sickle  is  simpler  than  the  harvester,  and  it  is  by  such 
analysis  that  the  object  is  understood  by  us." 

It  has  been  asserted  that  children  will  reproduce  the  activities 
suggested  in  mythology,  Robinson  Crusoe  stories,  etc.,  rather 
than  the  various  activities  which  they  witness  about  them  daily. 
My  own  observations  lead  me  to  the  opposite  view.  Many  other 
persons  with  whom  I  have  talked,  confirm  my  views.  My  chil- 
dren build  not  palaces  of  the  giant,  nor  the  home  of  Cinderella, 
but  instead  they  construct  bridges,  railway  trains,  fences,  barns, 
houses  of  modern  pattern,  automobiles,  etc.  The  factors  de- 
termining the  children's  specific  activities  are  interest  and 
imitation,  not  ancestral  experience.  Ancestral  experience  may 
and  does  place  limitations  upon  powers  and  capacities  of  the 
individual,  but  the  order  of  racial  experience  is  absolutely  unre- 
liable as  a  guide  in  determining  the  order  of  the  details  of  indi- 
vidual instruction.  The  individual  is  not  a  sum  of  all  racial 
experience,  but  rather  a  resultant  of  all  of  them  in  which  the 
particular  experiences  have  largely  lost  their  identity. 

Conclusions. — Although  the  knowledge  of  recapitulation  and 
the  culture  epochs  does  not  furnish  a  guide-book  for  the  details 
of  educational  practice,  yet  it  is  of  the  utmost  significance  in 
marking  out  the  broad  outlines  of  educational  procedure. 
Even  though  it  were  not  true  that  ontogeny  recapitulates  phylog- 
eny,  there  is  such  a  close  correspondence  or  parallelism  between 
the  development  of  the  individual  and  the  ascending  forms  of 
life  that  each  can  throw  much  light  upon  the  other.  The 
failure  of  the  culture  epochs  to  furnish  a  curriculum  is  not  due 
to  any  unreliability  of  the  law  of  recapitulation.  The  main 
reasons  why  a  knowledge  of  the  kind  of  culture  materials 


CULTURE  EPOCHS  THEORY  AND  EDUCATION  117 

utilized  by  the  race  at  a  given  time  cannot  furnish  this  guidance 
/are  twofold,  viz. :  first,  a  given  kind  of  stimuli  may  produce  very 
different  reactions  upon  different  individuals.  The  effect  de- 
pends upon  all  previous  effects.  The  child  of  to-day  is  not  just 
like  the  man  of  yesterday.  The  child  of  to-day  is  like  the  child 
of  yesterday,  plus  the  potentialities  of  the  man  of  to-day. 
Second,  since  so  many  short-circuits  have  been  established,  the 
details  of  successive  stages  have  become  so  obscured  that  only 
large  outlines  are  observable. 

A  knowledge  of  phylogeny  has  been  of  great  value  in  assisting 
us  to  understand  the  order  of  development  of  the  latent  powers. 
Knowing  the  phylogenetic  order  of  unfoldment  will  assist  in 
securing  appropriate  stimuli  for  the  awakening  of  the  various 
powers.  Many  diverse  kinds  of  objective  stimuli  might  be 
employed,  however,  to  secure  a  given  general  type  of  reaction. 
The  particular  kind  of  stimuli  most  efficient  will  depend  largely 
upon  the  individual's  interest,  that  in  turn  being  dependent  upon 
environment.  Thus  the  culture  epochs  theory  is  more  sug- 
gestive as  to  the  method  of  approach  than  as  to  the  content  of 
the  curriculum.  It  is  doubtless  also  very  suggestive  as  to  the 
order  of  presentation  of  the  different  aspects  of  a  given  subject. 
The  very  same  material  may  be  presented  in  concrete  details 
or  as  scientific  abstractions. 

The  culture  epochs  theory  shows  plainly  that  the  order  should 
be  from  simple  to  complex,  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract, 
from  sensory  impressions  to  abstract  relations,  etc.  But  the 
materials  employed  by  primitive  man  may  be  considered  in 
scientific  relations,  or  present-day  knowledge  may  be  considered 
in  a  very  simple  way.  The  scientific  truths  about  steam  dis- 
covered by  present-day  man  will  ever  be  scientific  truths  and 
unsuitable  for  children.  Similarly  the  obvious  concrete  phe- 
nomena regarding  steam  will  ever  be  concrete.  Their  availa- 
bility for  cultural  material  in  the  education  of  children  will  in 
no  wise  depend  upon  the  time  of  their  discovery  by  man,  but 
upon  the  interest  determined  by  their  relation  to  life  activities. 
In  conclusion,  a  knowledge  of  the  order  of  the  unfolding  of  the 


n8  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

various  powers  is  important,  the  particular  material  utilized 
in  furthering  this  development  is  relatively  less  important. 
The  discussior.  of  instinct,  heredity,  and  the  law  of  from  funda- 
mental to  accessory,  shows  more  clearly  how  inherited  impulses 
and  tendencies  may  be  utilized  in  education.1 

1  For  a  more  extended  critical  discussion  of  the  culture  epochs  theory  by 
the  author  see  Journal  o)  Pedagogy,   16  :  136-152. 


CHAPTER  VII 
"ROM  FUNDAMENTAL  T.O  ACCESSORY  IN  EDUCATION 

Meaning. — In  studying  children  and  lower  animals  it  has 
been  noticed  that  at  birth  certain  movements  and  certain  parts 
^f  the  body  are  much  better  controlled  than  others.  The  child 
can  move  its  whole  body  with  much  force;  the  legs  and  arms 
also  can  be  moved  with  great  strength,  while  the  fingers  seem 
powerless  and  entirely  lacking  in  precision.  A  little  reflection 
further  recalls  the  fact  that  the  vital  processes  of  respiration, 
digestion,  and  circulation  are  thoroughly  functional  at  birth? 
while  processes  of  thinking,  speech,  writing,  and  walking  have 
to  be  learned  through  toilsome  endeavor  and  after  some  degree 
of  maturity  is  reached. 

From  the  stand-point  of  structure  we  find  that  those  organs 
which  are  the  most  vital,  the  oldest,  and  most  stable  are  the  first 
to  be  developed.  The  heart,  lungs,  circulatory  organs,  and 
skin  are  developed  before  the  special  organs  of  sense.  An 
individual  could  exist  without  eyes  or  ears,  but  not  without 
organs  of  circulation.  In  the  growth  of  the  bones  those  which 
form  the  framework  are  first  developed.  The  backbone,  the 
large  bones  of  the  trunk  and  the  head,  develop  first,  and  later 
those  of  the  limbs.  The  larger  bones  precede  the  smaller  ones, 
such  bones  as  the  fingers  and  toes  appearing  late  in  foetal  life. 
The  teeth  and  the  finer  bony  structures  of  the  ear  are  of  late 
appearance;  the  former,  though  rudimentary  in  late  fatal  life, 
not  becoming  visible  until  months  after  birth.  The  muscles 
follow  similar  lines  of  growth  and  development.  The  great 
muscles  of  the  trunk  and  limbs  judged  from  both  the  stand-point 
of  function  and  structure  are  developed  before  the  muscles  of 

119 


120  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

the  hand,  the  face,  and  the  eye.  A  child  can  move  its  entire 
body  vigorously,  roll  over  alone  at  a  few  days  of  age,  kick  vigor- 
ously and  throw  its  arms  about,  but  it  is  a  long  time  before  it  can 
pick  up  a  pin  from  the  floor,  hold  a  pencil  steadily  enough  to 
write,  or  control  the  movements  of  the  eyes.  The  eyes  are  so 
unco-ordinated  for  weeks  and  even  months  that  one  can  scarcely 
tell  in  which  direction  many  children  are  looking.  Of  course, 
there  are  many  individual  differences,  but  the  order  of  develop- 
ment is  the  same  for  all. 

Those  movements  and  structures  which  appear  earliest  and 
which  seem  so  important  to  simple  existence  are  termed  funda- 
mental. Those  which  develop  later,  and  which  seem  necessary 
only  to  complex  existence,  are  termed  accessory.  The  order 
of  development  from  those  simpler  modes  and  types  to  the 
more  complex  is  termed  "from  fundamental  to  accessory." 
The  terms  fundamental  and  accessory  are  not  employed  here 
as  referring  to  any  fixed  sets  of  organs  or  functions.  The 
meaning  is  relative  instead.  In  a  general  way,  by  fundamental 
we  mean  also  that  which  is  vital  and  necessarv  to  existence. 
By  accessory  we  mean  that  which  is  less  vital  and  in  a  way  less 
necessary  to  existence.  The  entire  expression  "from  funda- 
mental to  accessory"  means  that  development  proceeds  from 
that  which  is  relatively  simple,  fixed,  stable,  and  indispensable 
to  that  which  is  less  so.  Usually  that  which  is  the  more  funda- 
mental is  earlier  developed  than  the  accessory. 

Order  in  Phylogenesis  as  in  Ontogenesis. — This  order  of  de- 
velopment from  fundamental  to  accessory  is  true  not  only  of 
the  growth  of  individuals  but  also  of  the  race.  All  animal  life 
has  doubtless  evolved  from  very  simple  types.  The  earliest, 
lowliest,  most  primitive  organisms  possessed  only  the  structures 
and  functions  absolutely  necessary  to  existence.  A  single  organ, 
the  skin,  as  shown  before,  served  many  purposes  equally  well. 
Refined  sensory  organs,  prehensile  and  motor  organs,  were  of 
very  late  acquisition.  While  convenient,  wonderfully  useful, 
and  marks  of  the  highest  aristocracy  in  animal  development, 
most  of  the  late  acquisitions  could  be  dispensed  with  and  life 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY      121 

processes  still  continue.  Considered  comparatively  we  observe 
that  the  lower  animals  perform  all  the  vital  functions  as  well  as 
or  often  better  than  human  beings.  The  latter  have  degenerated 
in  this  direction  in  many  cases  through  the  processes  of  higher 
specialization.  All  of  the  higher  animals  begin  life  as  unicel- 
lular germs  and  gradually  become  differentiated  by  the  develop- 
ment of  specialized  and  more  complex  structures. 

Illustrated  in  Development  of  Nervous  System. — In  the  devel- 
opment of  the  nervous  system  we  find  an  excellent  illustration 
of  the  law  under  discussion.  The  first  portion  to  develop  is  the 
spinal  cord,  which  in  the  individual  and  the  race  is  at  first  a 
simple  affair — mainly  a  comparatively  straight  undifferentiated 
tube.  Following  this  the  various  collateral  branches  forming  the 
peripheral  system  with  the  end  organs  of  sense  develop.  There 
occurs  along  with  this  differentiation  the  specialization  of  one 
portion  of  the  nervous  system  into  the  brain.  The  brain  itself 
develops  gradually,  and  so-called  different  "levels"  develop 
at  different  times.  The  medulla  develops  first,  the  cerebellum 
next,  and  last  the  cerebral  lobes.  Even  here  the  complete 
development  does  not  occur  all  at  once.  The  frontal  areas  and 
other  most  highly  specialized  areas  are  the  very  last  to  develop 
to  functional  maturity.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred,  of  course,  that 
each  stage  or  level  is  completed  before  the  next  begins.  The 
development  of  many  parts  goes  on  synchronously  and  there  are 
only  slight  differences  between  a  given  level  and  the  next  higher. 
But  when  we  compare  a  very  low,  vital,  and  fundamental  portion 
with  a  very  high  and  late  function,  the  difference  becomes  strik- 
ing. For  example,  all  vital  or  vegetative  functions  are  controlled 
by  the  spinal  cord,  which  is  the  seat  of  control  of  reflexes.  This 
becomes  functional  very  early,  while  the  frontal  cerebral  lobes 
are  very  late  in  morphological  and  functional  development. 
The  spinal  cord  is  so  fundamental  and  absolutely  necessary  to 
life  that  the  slightest  injury  to  it  causes  death.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  cerebral  lobes  may  be  burned,  electrified,  or  even 
excised  and  life  goes  on — sometimes  apparently  unaffected  by 
the  injury. 


it*  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Professor  Tyler1  has  the  following  to  say:  "What  we  call 
our  brain  has  been  builded  by  successive  additions  at  very 
different  periods  of  geological  history.  Medulla,  cerebellum, 
mid-brain,  and  the  basal  ganglia  of  the  cerebrum  are  old. 
They  may  all  date  from  early  palaeozoic  time.  The  cortex  is 
far  younger,  and  its  portions  are  of  different  ages.  The  asso- 
ciation areas  very  probably  did  not  arise  until  well  on  in  tertiary 
or  cenozoic  time.  They  are  still  far  from  their  final  and  com- 
plete stage.  Our  brain  is  much  like  the  fortress-palaces  so 
common  and  striking  in  certain  parts  of  France.  Their  founda- 
tions are  old,  heavy,  and  strong;  capable  of  resisting  anything 
except  modern  artillery.  The  successive  additions  grow  steadily 
lighter,  more  complex,  more  graceful,  and  better  fitted  for  a 
higher  civilization.  So  the  old  fundamental  centres  are  the 
fortress  foundations  of  the  brain,  the  seats  of  endurance  and 
resistance.  If  they  are  neglected  or  incompletely  developed, 
the  whole  brain  structure  totters  or  collapses.  They,  far  more 
than  the  higher  centres,  claim  and  require  our  attention  through- 
out childhood.  In  late  childhood  or  adolescence  we  can  develop 
the  finer  powers.  We  see  clearly  that  mental  exercise  of  a  logical 
sort  has  added  only  the  finishing  touches  to  the  development  of 
the  brain." 

Dr.  Ross  2  first  called  attention  to  the  difference  between  the 
two  types  of  structures.  He  wrote:  "The  portions  of  the  ner- 
vous system  \vhich  man  possesses  in  common  with  lower  animals 
and  which  are  well  developed  in  the  human  embryo  of  nine 
months,  I  shall  call  the  fundamental  part,  and  the  portions  which 
have  been  superadded  in  the  course  of  evolution,  which  differ- 
entiate the  nervous  system  of  man  from  that  of  the  highest 
of  the  lower  animals,  and  which  are  either  absent  in  the  human 
embryo  or  exist  only  in  an  embryonic  condition,  I  shall  call  the 
accessory  part  of  the  nervous  system." 

Order  of  Degeneration. — In  the  progress  of  diseases  of  the 
nervous  system  the  order  of  degeneration  is  in  the  reverse 
direction;  that  is,  from  accessory  to  fundamental.  The  cerebral 

1  Growth  and  Education,  p.  45.  3  Diseases  of  the  Nervous  System. 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY      123 

lobes  are  attacked  before  the  lower  brain  centres,  and  the  brain 
before  the  spinal  cord.  In  mental  dissolution  the  same  order 
is  observable.  The  most  recent  acquisitions  are  the  most  fleet- 
ing. An  old  man  forgets  the  new  fact  learned  yesterday,  but  can 
recite  details  of  early  life  by  the  hour.  An  old  man  of  ninety 
years  of  my  acquaintance  continually  forgot  the  recent  events, 
acquaintances  formed,  work  done,  what  he  had  read,  etc.,  but 
could  recite  verbatim  almost  the  whole  of  Webster's  "  Old  Blue- 
backed  Speller."  He  could  detail  his  whole  life  history  also  up 
to  sixty  years.  The  later  life  was  vague  in  memory.  A  knowl- 
edge of  this  order  is  of  great  importance  in  the  medical  treatment 
of  nervous  diseases.  If  the  higher  centres  are  diseased,  the  case 
is  not  nearly  so  serious  as  when  the  spinal  cord  is  involved. 

Some  Pedagogical  Blunders. — The  pedagogic  corollaries  to 
be  derived  from  the  law  of  "from  fundamental  to  accessory" 
are  very  important.  In  this  law  we  have  indicated  the  natural 
order  of  growth.  To  proceed  counter  to  it  in  striving  to  stimu- 
late and  assist  growth  is  to  invite  nature's  sure  and  condign 
punishment.  A  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  law  has  led  to  many 
grievous  errors.  In  the  near  past,  and  unfortunately  often  in  the 
present,  the  "three  r's"  have  been  regarded  as  the  sole  means  of 
educational  salvation  for  children,  and  at  a  tender  age  they  have 
been  sent  to  school  and  at  once  plunged  into  the  intricacies  of 
these  processes.  At  that  stage  of  life  the  finger  muscles  and  eye 
muscles  are  relatively  very  immature  and  the  fine  adjustments 
and  co-ordinations  can  only  be  accomplished  through  forcing. 
Even  sitting  so  long,  and,  still  worse,  sitting  still  (often  with 
hands  folded,  sometimes  behind  the  back!),  necessitates  a 
tremendous  nervous  strain.  The  kindergarten  with  its  ideals  of 
freedom  of  movement  in  theory  alleviates  some  of  the  ills,  but 
even  this  beneficent  institution  has  been  guilty  of  great  peda- 
gogic sins.  In  the  effort  to  standardize  everything  the  play  has 
become  stereotyped  and  exacting,  the  motor  exercises  of  stick- 
laying,  weaving,  pricking,  etc.,  have  required  the  manipulation 
of  altogether  too  minute  objects  which  the  immature  fingers  and 
eye  muscles  are  incapable  of  controlling,  at  least  without  enervat- 


i24  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ing  effects.  Undoubtedly  a  whole  crop  of  nervous  disorders, 
eye  strain,  and  debilitated  systems  has  followed  in  the  wake  of 
pedagogic  blundering.  Many  cases  of  St.  Vitus  dance,  or 
chorea,  have  been  directly  traced  to  the  premature  use  of  unde- 
veloped centres.  Now  the  wise  teacher,  instead  of  requiring  the 
child  to  follow  a  microscopic  copy  with  a  fine  pen  with  which  to 
do  his  first  scribbling,  lets  him  go  to  the  blackboard  and  execute 
large  unrestricted  movements  with  the  whole  arm.  In  my 
childhood  days  the  school-mistress  punished  us  for  drawing 
pictures,  which  were  always  done  in  bold  outlines,  but  now  the 
discriminating  teacher  encourages  this  as  a  means  of  securing 
muscular  control. 

Physical  Growth  Antecedent  to  Mental. — In  race  development 
and  in  normal  individual  development  physical  growth  is  always 
antecedent  to  mental.  In  race  history  man  lived  by  brute  force 
for  ages  before  making  use  of  his  wits.  In  fact,  for  a  long  period 
he  had  little  wit  to  exercise.  Muscular  strength  was  at  a  pre- 
mium and  its  thorough  development  was  a  necessary  preliminary 
to  higher  brain  development.  A  corresponding  order  is  observ- 
able in  the  unfolding  of  the  individual.  The  child  must  be  a 
good  animal  befoie  he  can  become  a  good  scholar.  Unfortu- 
nately all  this  is  unknown  or  forgotten  by  many  in  the  education 
of  the  child.  The  legal  age  for  compulsory  school  attendance 
is  usually  too  low  and  the  age  of  permissive  attendance  is  a 
mark  of  the  grossest  educational  blundering. 

''If  a  function  is  exercised  before  the  organs  with  which  it  is 
connected  are  prepared  for  use,  by  having  attained  to  their 
development,  demands  are  made  upon  them  to  which  they  are 
not  prepared  to  respond.  They  are  consequently  overtaxed, 
and  precocious  exhaustion  must  be  the  inevitable  result.  The 
same  result  attends  the  too  early  use  of  any  organ  of  the  body. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  muscular  system,  which  in  a  child  is 
weak  and  delicate.  If  severe  physical  tasks  be  imposed  upon 
the  muscles,  they  not  only  break  down  but  the  whole  organism 
of  the  child  becomes  disordered.  Again,  as  regards  the  brain, 
which  in  early  childhood  is  scarcely  fit  for  any  further  use,  so 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY      125 

far  as  the  mind  is  concerned,  than  that  of  receiving  impressions 
of  surrounding  objects,  if  it  be  spurred  on  to  the  making  of  what 
to  it  are  strong  efforts  toward  acquiring  knowledge,  it  is  not  long 
before  the  evidences  of  serious  derangement  make  their  appear- 
ance, and  an  era  of  suffering  begins,  which  becomes  more  and 
more  strongly  marked  with  every  act  of  mental  exertion  which 
the  child  may  make."  1 

The  main  business  of  the  child  should  be  to  develop  physically 
— to  become  a  good  animal.  If  he  becomes  a  first-class  animal 
with  all  the  marks  and  attributes  of  health,  strength,  and  vital 
capacity,  he  has  a  good  foundation  upon  which  to  build  a  worthy 
mental — and  shall  we  not  say  moral  ? — superstructure.  To  have 
at  the  dawn  of  adolescence  big  lungs,  firm  muscles,  ruddy 
cheeks,  and  scintillating  eyes  is  more  important  than  to  have 
the  distinction  of  being  first  in  one's  class  in  the  grammar 
school.  To  be  able  to  excel  in  running,  jumping,  skating, 
wrestling,  and  base-ball  is  far  more  to  be  desired  in  the  youth 
of  fourteen  than  to  excel  in  mathematics  and  Latin.  Crudity 
of  speech  at  that  time  is  not  a  stigma,  but  to  be  halting  in  step, 
pale  and  anaemic,  are  sorry  handicaps.  Professor  Tyler2  says: 
"We  do  not  ask  the  baby  to  solve  problems  in  mathematics  or 
philosophy.  We  expect  and  desire  in  him  only  the  dawn  of 
mind.  We  ask  and  pray  that  he  will  eat  well,  sleep  well,  wriggle 
and  cry  more  or  less,  keep  healthy,  and  grow.  This  is  his  whole 
duty.  Bodily  growth  is  his  business.  For  how  many  years  is 
growth  the  chief  business  of  the  child  ?  Is  it  his  chief  business 
throughout  the  primary  and  intermediate  grades?  If  so,  what 
and  how  much  is  the  school  doing  to  promote  growth  during 
these  years?"  He  further  says:  "A  very  wise  and  learned 
committee  lays  out  for  our  schools  a  curriculum  which  does  not 
assign  a  single  period  in  the  week  to  physical  training,  nor  men- 
tion any  such  branch.  They  seem  to  have  regarded  the  child 
as  a  disembodied  spirit,  or  in  great  haste  to  become  one.  ...  In 
the  grammar  grade  is  learning  and  mental  discipline  of  chief 

1  Surgeon-General,  New  York  Post-Graduate  Medical  School. 

2  Growth  and  Education,  pp.  20,  21,  45,  47,  58,  90. 


126  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

importance  to  the  girl,  or  is  care  of  the  body  and  physical  exer- 
cise absolutely  essential  at  this  period  ?  No  one  seems  to  know, 
and  very  few  care.  What  would  Nature  say?  If  we  disobey 
her  laws,  it  will  cost  us  a  heavy  penalty.  '  The  plowing  of  the 
wicked  is  sin;'  not  because  plowing  is  not  excellent,  but  because 
it  is  allowed  to  crowd  out  a  far  more  important  duty.  Are 
some  of  our  educational  experiments  and  efforts  sin  ?  ... 

"Brain  and  muscle  are  never  divorced  in  the  action  of  healthy 
higher  animals  or  of  healthy  man.  They  should  not  be  divorced 
in  the  education  of  the  child.  God  has  joined  them  together; 
let  not  man  by  any  artificial  system  put  them  asunder.  .  .  .  The 
child  during  its  earlier  years  should  be  educated  far  more 
through  its  muscles  and  sense  organs  than  directly  through 
the  brain.  Hand  and  eye  are  now  more  efficient  means  of 
intellectual  development  than  thought  or  even  memory.  The 
young  child  is  largely  an  animal.  The  higher  mental  powers 
which  characterize  man  do  not  appear  until  about  the  period 
of  puberty.  Our  chief  aim  should  be  to  keep  him  a  healthy 
animal  and  to  promote  the  growth  of  the  fundamental  organs 
and  powers  which  alone  can  form  a  firm  and  stable  support  for 
all  later  additions  and  improvements.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the  child 
is  hungry  to  run  and  we  deem  it  better  for  him  to  sit  still  and  try 
to  think.  We  are  attempting  to  exercise  a  centre  in  the  brain 
which  is  in  a  stage  of  pure  growth.  The  exercise  does  little  or 
no  good;  it  may  do  some  or  considerable  harm.  At  the  same 
time  we  are  depriving  the  muscles  of  exercise  which  is  absolutely 
essential  to  them.  We  neglect  or  fail  to  exercise  the  sensory  and 
motor  centres  in  the  brain  and  wonder  that  the  development  of 
the  higher  centres  is  not  more  complete  and  harmonious.  We 
forget  that  the  finer  muscles  and  the  higher  nervous  centres 
require  for  their  own  development  the  highest  possible  efficiency 
and  exercise  of  the  fundamental  parts.  .  .  .  Before  eleven  or 
twelve  there  are  few  really  mental  interests.  The  higher  cen- 
tres of  the  brain  are  not  mature  enough  to  crave  much 
exercise.  The  child  thinks;  but  must  think  as  a  child,  not  as 
a  man." 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY      127 

Development  of  Voluntary  Motor  Ability. — Before  birth  and 
for  months  and  even  years  after,  the  child  executes  a  great 
many  involuntary  movements.  His  voluntary  efforts  are  also 
sadly  lacking  in  precision  and  ease.  It  is  with  difficulty  that  he 
learns  to  button  his  clothing,  tie  a  knot,  use  scissors,  manipulate 
the  knife  and  fork,  or  use  a  pencil.1  Idiots  are  notably  lacking 
in  precision  of  activities,  frequently  being  unable  to  walk  well, 
and  still  less  to  talk,  use  a  pencil,  tie  a  knot,  or  use  a  needle. 
The  more  fundamental  the  movement  the  better  they  execute 
it,  and  the  more  accessory  the  less  the  power  of  co-ordination. 

Dr.  Bryan 2  made  a  careful  and  extended  series  of  observations 
upon  the  development  of  voluntary  motor  ability  and  gained 
some  valuable  data  upon  this  question.  He  arranged  a  series 
of  exercises  in  which  children  from  six  to  sixteen  tapped  with  the 
finger,  using  successively  only  the  finger  muscles,  those  of  the 
wrist,  elbow,  and  the  shoulders.  He  ascertained  that  in  both 
boys  and  girls  the  elbow  and  shoulder  movements  showed  more 
maturity  than  those  of  the  wrist  and  the  finger.  His  results 
showed  that  at  six  the  power  of  co-ordination  of  finger  move- 
ments is  decidedly  less  than  at  sixteen.  The  finger  acquires 
ability  in  precision  and  rapidity  largely  after  nine  or  ten  years. 
In  Dr.  Bryan's  words,  "These  results  show  that  the  shoulder 
grows  most  slowly  and  the  elbow  slightly  faster,  the  wrist  and 
finger  very  much  more  rapidly."  Certainly  this  is  very  signifi- 
cant concerning  the  age  at  which  to  begin  writing,  piano- playing, 
and  similar  activities. 

Close  observation  of  children  discloses  to  us  that  there  is  a 
frequent  twitching  of  the  peripheral  muscles,  such  as  those  of 
the  hand,  the  foot,  the  eye,  various  muscles  of  the  face,  and  even 
the  peripheral  muscles  of  the  skin.  These  twitchings  continue 
during  sleep.  The  eye,  for  example,  is  never  absolutely  still. 
In  early  infancy  they  'are  much  more  noticeable  than  at  a  later 
stage.  They  are  perfectly  normal  phenomena  and  simply  show 

1  This  will  "be  more  fully  discussed  in  the  sections  dealing  with  motor  training 
and  will  development. 

"  On  the  Development  of  Voluntary  Motor  Ability,"  Am.  Jour,  of  Psych. 
5 :   125-204. 


128 

the  immaturity  and  relative  racial  immaturity  of  these  classes 
of  muscles  and  of  the  centres  controlling  them.  As  the  child 
grows  older  and  the  nervous  mechanism  becomes  more  perfected 
they  gradually  disappear  from  notice,  although  even  in  adult 
life  the  eye  twitchings  and  other  slight  vibrations  may  be  noticed 
by  the  careful  observer.  An  interesting  study  of  inhibition  was 
made  by  Curtis,  who  found  that  the  ordinary  child  cannot  sit 
still  more  than  thirty  seconds,  and  children  from  five  to  ten  years 
not  more  than  one  minute  and  one-half.  What  a  cruel  "break- 
ing-in"  he  gets  in  the  six  hours  of  a  school  day! l 

Professor  Hancock  conducted  a  series  of  experiments  requir- 
ing children  ranging  from  five  to  seven  years  to  thread  a  needle, 
tie  a  string,  hold  the  arm  horizontally,  suppress  twitching  move- 
ments, tap  with  the  fingers,  etc.,  and  concluded  that  children 
can  easily  learn  to  make  movements  involving  the  large  muscles, 
but  that  the  finer  co-ordinations  come  later.  The  order  seems 
to  be:  body,  shoulder,  arm,  forearm,  hand.  Control  of  the 
index  finger  is  gained  before  the  others.2 

Some  interesting  and  instructive  observations  and  experiments 
have  been  made  upon  idiots.  They  are  notably  deficient  in  the 
finer  co-ordinations.  Dr.  Ireland  writes:3  "The  best  and 
earliest  sign  of  idiocy  is  the  deficiency  of  grasp.  The  hand 
is  flapped  or  vibrated  about  instead  of  being  employed  to  seize 
or  obtain  an  object.  Imbeciles  are  clumsy  in  the  use  of  the 
hands,  and  it  is  difficult  to  teach  them  any  exercise  or  handi- 
craft requiring  method  and  dexterity.  Even  imbeciles  .  .  .  are 
generally  very  inexpert  at  such  exercises  as  catching  a  ball,  or 
aiming  at  anything,  and  it  is  difficult  to  teach  them  greater 
dexterity" 

Application  to  Training  Feeble-Minded. — A  knowledge  of  the 
order  of  development  has  completely  revolutionized  the  methods 
of  training  idiots.  Formerly  it  was  thought  that  the  way  out  of 
darkness  led  through  the  reading-book  and  the  spelling-book. 

1  "Inhibition,"  Fed.  Sent.,  vol.  VI,  p.  93. 

3  "A  Study  of  Motor  Ability,"  Fed.  Sem.,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  9-29. 

3  Blot  on  the  Brain,  p.  64,  2rl  edition.      (Italics  mine.) 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO   ACCESSORY      129 

and  so  the  first  attempts  were  directed  toward  the  formal  school 
arts.  The  results  were  what  we  might  expect.  If  not  positively 
harmful,  they  were  certainly  the  least  desirable  means  of  educa- 
tion. Now,  instead  of  beginning  with  such  accessory  activities, 
teachers  of  the  feeble-minded  begin  with  the  simplest  possible 
bodily  movements  involving  the  largest  and  most  fundamental 
muscles  of  the  body.  They  are  taught  to  walk,  to  run,  to  stand, 
to  climb,  throw,  row,  jump,  and  engage  in  plays  and  games. 
At  first  no  exercises  involving  fine  co-ordinations  are  required. 
Gradually  more  complex  exercises  are  introduced.  Only  after 
vigorous  bodily  health,  muscular  tone,  and  a  reasonable  motor 
control  have  been  secured  are  the  traditional  school  arts  intro- 
duced. Our  schools  for  normal  children  have  learned  and  may 
well  learn  valuable  hints  from  a  study  of  the  feeble-minded. 

Order  in  Psychic  Development. — In  the  realm  of  higher  and 
more  formal  mental  education  the  same  law  will  apply,  although 
the  exact  order  of  appearance  is  not  so  well  defined.  It  has  long 
been  understood  that  sense  knowledge  should  precede  more 
complex  thought  processes.  The  race  lived  a  life  of  sense  per- 
ception long  before  higher  processes  of  elaborate  thought  were 
developed.  Associations  between  sensory  experiences  and  motor 
reactions  in  securing  food,  warding  off  enemies,  providing  shelter, 
furthering  pleasures,  and  avoiding  pains  were  sufficient  for  the 
needs  of  the  time.  Gradually  more  complex  and  far-sighted 
schemes  were  evolved  and  finer  co-ordinations  made  necessary 
in  shaping  tools,  producing  pictures,  and  constructing  more 
accurately  the  implements  and  articles  used. 

Similarly  the  child  is  contented  with  sensory  experiences  and 
immediate  reactions  upon  his  environment.  Naturally  his  asso- 
ciations are  of  a  relatively  simple  type.  His  reasonings  are 
crude.  Causes  and  effects  are  confused,  as,  for  example,  the 
boy  of  three  said:  "Let  us  hurry  because  the  trees  make  the 
wind  blow  and  it  will  be  cold  in  the  park."  The  child  lives  in 
the  present.  A  single  stick  of  candy  to-day  is  more  treasured 
than  five  promised  to-morrow.  At  this  period  he  learns  things 
mechanically  with  ease,  acquires  isolated  facts  without  noting 


i3o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

or  establishing  relations  among  them.  Should  this  not  caution 
us  against  the  premature  introduction  of  scientific  relations, 
abstract  formulae,  and  abstractions  of  grammar?  Facts  of 
nature  may  be  learned  readily,  but  obscure  scientific  principles 
must  be  delayed.  Grammar  is  ordinarily  introduced  too  early 
in  the  curriculum,  abstruse  arithmetical  deductions  should  give 
way  in  the  first  six  years  of  school  to  the  simplest  facts  and 
processes,  and  these  should  be  so  well  drilled  into  the  children's 
nervous  systems  as  to  make  the  operations  automatic.  These 
scientific  facts,  the  data  of  biography  and  history,  a  knowledge 
of  reading  and  writing,  facts  of  geography  and  travel,  ability  to 
draw,  to  sing,  to  fashion  various  things  in  the  manual  arts, 
together  with  a  strong  body,  supple  muscles,  big  lungs,  and  a 
clean,  healthy,  unaffected  mind  should  be  the  capital  of  a  boy 
or  a  girl  at  the  close  of  the  grammar  school  course.  Later 
schooling  and  life  will  give  significance  to  these,  establish  new 
relations,  evolve  from  them  scientific  laws  and  principles.  They 
will  also  be  the  tools  for  acquiring  and  furnish  an  apperceptive 
background  for  future  conquests  of  knowledge.1 

Adaptation  of  Curriculum  to  Stages  of  Growth. — It  is  highly 
important  that  the  educator  be  able  to  determine  accurately  the 
different  periods  in  childhood  and  youth  and  clearly  recognize 
their  characters.  Educational  means  must  be  adapted  to  the 
varying  periods  of  development.  One  of  the  greatest  pedagog- 
ical sins  has  been  in  the  lack  of  adaptation  of  work  to  the  needs 
of  the  varying  periods  of  development.  Abstract  grammar  and 
arithmetic  have  been  placed  in  early  childhood,  but  they  are 
more  fitted  for  university  study.  The  child  mind  demands 
concrete  instruction,  that  which  appeals  to  sense  perception  and 
not  to  abstract  reason.  To  invert  the  order  is  to  sin  against 
child  nature.  The  period  of  the  grammar  school  and  the 
years  preceding  are  periods  of  gathering  rather  than  of  organiza- 
tion; periods  of  sensory  training  rather  than  the  development 

1  For  a  full  and  critical  discussion  of  the  entire  topic,  see  Burk,  "From  Funda- 
mental to  Accessory  in  the  Development  of  the  Nervous  System  and  of  Move- 
ments," Am.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  vol.  VI,  pp.  5-64. 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO  ACCESSORY      131 

of  reason.  During  this  period,  association  fibres  are  forming 
in  the  brain  and  when  they  are  fully  established  the  reasoning 
processes  may  be  cultivated,  and  not  before. 

Ross  wrote  apropos  of  this,  that  "until  a  few  years  ago  the 
natural  order  of  development  was  reversed  in  education,  so  far 
as  this  could  be  accomplished  by  human  contrivance  and 
ingenuity.  .  .  .  No  sooner  had  what  is  technically  called  edu- 
cation begun  than  the  professional  trainer  began  to  exercise  the 
small  muscles  of  vocalization  and  articulation,  so  as  to  acquire 
the  "art  of  reading;  the  small  muscles  of  the  hand,  so  as  to  acquire 
the  art  of  writing;  and,  in  the  case  of  young  ladies,  the  still 
more  complicated  movements  necessary  in  running  over  the  key- 
board of  the  piano;  while  little  attention  was  paid  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  larger  muscles  of  the  trunk  and  lower  extremities, 
upon  the  full  development  of  which  the  future  comfort  of  the 
individual  depends." 

Illustration  in  Speech  Development. — Hartwell 1  urged  the 
importance  of  noting  that  in  speech  development  there  are  at 
least  three  levels  of  growth.  "The  organs  of  respiration  are  the 
most  central  or  fundamental  of  the  series.  The  organs  of 
phonation,  which  give  vocal  character  to  the  stream  of  expired 
air  from  the  lungs,  are  intermediate,  and  their  neural  mechan- 
isms are,  therefore,  to  be  considered  as  accessory  in  comparison 
with  those  of  the  breathing  organs,  but  relatively  fundamental 
in  comparison  with  the  centres  which  represent  the  movements 
of  the  more  peripheral  organs  of  articulation.  It  is  indisputably 
certain  that  the  young  child  learns  to  breathe  and  cry  aloud 
before  it  can  speak,  and  that  there  is  a  progressive  development 
in  his  power  to  imitate  and  reproduce  the  consonant  sounds, 
after  he  has  begun  to  speak.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  may  safely 
aver  that  the  law  of  the  evolution  of  the  nervous  system  is  of 
great  pedagogical  importance,  since  it  suggests  the  natural  order 
which  should  be  followed  in  training  the  organs  concerned  in 
any  complex  co-ordinated  movements.  For  instance,  it  is  trans- 
gressing the  laws  of  nature  to  emphasize  the  training  of  the 

1  Addresses  and  Proceedings,  International  Congress  a)  Education,  1893,  p.  743. 


132  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

fingers  before  the  neuro-muscular  mechanisms  of  the  hand, 
arm,  and  shoulder  have  become  thoroughly  organized,  and  their 
respective  movements  been  brought  under  control ;  or  to  attempt 
to  teach  a  child  to  read  aloud  before  he  has  learned  to  speak 
plainly  and  readily.  Dr.  H.  Gutzmann  declares  that  in  fully 
half  of  the  children  who  enter  school  the  power  of  speech  is 
undeveloped." 

Errors  in  Teaching  Arithmetic. — The  law  has  been  grossly 
violated  in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic.  While  the  young  child 
is  able  to  acquire  concepts  of  number  and  its  relations  through 
concrete  and  objective  teaching,  he  is  entirely  unprepared  for 
the  abstract  reasoning.  Teachers  often  require  the  child  to 
talk  about  profound  number  concepts  only  possible  of  compre- 
hension by  adults  and  require  him  to  tattle  the  forms  of  reason- 
ing. But  it  is  a  delusion  to  think  that  the  child  really  grasps  the 
abstractions.  His  knowledge  is  confined  to  what  he  gains 
through  imagery  of  concrete  relations  and  to  a  purely  mechanical 
memory  of  processes  that  he  has  learned.  In  a  good  many 
schools  the  experiment  has  been  tried  of  omitting  all  formal 
arithmetic  during  the  first  two  years  of  school.  All  experiments 
have  shown  that-  children  who  omitted  the  formal  work  were 
just  as  well  advanced  in  arithmetic  by  the  end  of  the  fourth  year 
as  those  who  had  taken  the  subject  four  years.  Of  course, 
number  concepts  and  easy  processes  of  addition,  subtraction, 
multiplication,  and  division  should  be  acquired.  The  former 
must  be  learned  through  sense  perception  and  imagery,  the 
latter  largely  mechanically.  Reasoning  processes  should  be 
deferred  until  the  child's  brain  cells  and  association  fibres  have 
developed  sufficiently.  We  know  that  a  child  begins  to  walk 
when  the  zones  controlling  locomotion  are  mature,  to  talk  when 
speech  centres  become  functional,  and  it  is  no  less  certain  that 
complex  reasoning  processes  must  await  the  proper  develop- 
ment of  the  frontal  cerebral  lobes  and  the  proper  association 
fibres. 

Order  in  Geometry. — Spencer  pointed  out  a  very  important 
truth  in  the  teaching  of  geometry,  which  unfortunately  is  too 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO   ACCESSORY      133 

little  known  and  heeded.  He  observed  that  most  geometry 
taught  to  boys  first  is  the  demonstrative  type.  Deduction  is  a 
mental  method  which  develops  late.  Induction  is  the  funda- 
mental method,  deduction  accessory.  Before  taking  the  ordi- 
nary demonstrative,  deductive  geometry  the  child  should  have 
an  opportunity  to  study  form  and  space  relations,  objectively, 
concretely,  arriving  at  many  conclusions  the  truth  of  which  he 
cannot  then  fully  test  but  which  must  be  reserved  for  later  con- 
sideration. Paper-cutting,  cardboard  work,  moulding,  modelling, 
constructing  from  various  materials,  drawing,  measuring,  super- 
imposing, etc.,  should  find  large  place  in  the  elementary  curric- 
ulum. There  is  no  reason  why  the  concepts  of  two-thirds  of 
the  various  geometric  forms,  magnitudes,  and  relations  usually 
learned  in  the  high  school  should  not  become  familiar  in  the 
elementary  and  grammar-school  course.  Demonstrative  work 
should  be  reserved  for  much  later  consideration. 

Mistakes  in  Teaching  Grammar. — In  teaching  grammar  a 
similar  mistake  has  been  committed.  Grammatical  abstractions 
have  been  forced  upon  children  at  a  time  when  their  minds  were 
prepared  only  for  concrete  ideas.  We  have  forgotten  that 
grammar  is  the  science  of  language  and  that  science  is  a  subject 
for  mature  minds  only.  Language  as  a  means  of  communicat- 
ing and  receiving  ideas  has  been  a  very  fundamental  accomplish- 
ment in  the  race.  In  the  individual's  development  it  is  likewise 
exceedingly  fundamental.  The  science  of  language — grammar 
— has  been  very  accessory  both  in  phylogenetic  and  in  onto- 
genetic  development.  The  school-master  should  heed  this. 
From  three  to  twelve  the  child  is  in  a  nascent  period  for  acquiring 
spoken  language.  During  that  period  a  normal  child  will 
acquire  a  mastery  of  the  elements  of  two  or  three  spoken  lan- 
guages besides  the  mother  tongue.  Instead  of  exercising  this 
instinct  and  aiding  the  child  to  acquire  what  is  fundamental  to 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  grammar,  we  arrest  development  both 
by  failing  to  give  appropriate  opportunity  and  also  by  premature 
attempts  to  develop  powers  that  are  as  yet  largely  germinal. 

Spencer  regards  as  an  "intensely  stupid  custom,  the  teaching 


i34  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

of  grammar  to  children."  He  regards  grammar  as  "not  the 
stepping-stone  but  the  finishing  instrument,"  and  says  that 
"Grammar  and  syntax  are  a  collection  of  laws  and  rules. 
Rules  are  gathered  from  practice;  they  are  the  results  of  induc- 
tion to  which  we  come  by  long  observation  and  comparison  of 
facts.  It  is,  in  fine,  the  science,  the  philosophy  of  language. 
In  following  the  process  of  nature,  neither  individuals  nor  nations 
ever  arrive  at  the  science  first.  A  language  is  spoken,  and  poetry 
written,  many  years  before  either  a  grammar  or  prosody  is  even 
thought  of.  Men  did  not  wait  till  Aristotle  had  constructed  his 
logic,  to  reason.  In  short,  as  grammar  was  made  after  language, 
so  ought  it  to  be  taught  after  language :  an  inference  which  all 
who  recognize  the  relationship  between  the  evolution  of  the 
race  and  of  the  individual  will  see  to  be  unavoidable."  l 

Natural  Science. — Natural  science  teaching  has  been  very 
poorly  done  and  the  cause  has  suffered  much  by  failure  to  detect 
what  has  been  fundamental  in  race  development  and  then  to 
apply  the  law  in  teaching  individuals.  Scientific  concepts  are 
abstract.  They  have  been  wrought  out  by  mature  minds  and 
cannot  be  grasped  by  the  immature  minds  of  children.  No 
wonder  that  "nature  study"  has  failed  to  be  satisfactory  in  the 
schools.  Thousands  of  concrete  facts  are  at  hand  in  which 
children  would  be  interested  if  only  presented  in  a  manner  suited 
to  their  comprehension.  But  many  teachers  of  nature  study  at 
the  outset  seek  a  book  and  require  children  to  memorize  defini- 
tions, acquire  statements  of  concepts  beyond  their  comprehen- 
sion, and  to  classify  and  systematize  the  subject.  All  this  means 
the  study  of  abstract  science,  something  which  should  come 
much  later.  The  child  should  acquire  sensory  knowledge  of  a 
wide  range  of  objective  facts  before  he  attempts  to  classify, 
systematize,  and  define.  When  he  has  something  to  systematize 
it  will  be  soon  enough  to  do  that.  The  facts  are  fundamental, 
scientific  classification  is  accessory. 

Even  in  the  high  school  the  accessories  of  botany,  zoology, 
and  physics  are  often  emphasized  instead  of  the  fundamentals. 

1  Education,  p.  106. 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO   ACCESSORY      135 

The  teacher  is  frequently  one  who  has  acquired  all  he  knows 
of  the  subject  from  books,  or  being  fresh  from  college  he  presents 
his  subject  from  the  same  stand- point  as  it  was  presented  to  him. 
In  either  case  the  results  are  disappointing.  The  teacher  of 
science  must  be  saturated  with  devices  which  he  has  gained  at 
first  hand  for  making  the  subject  alive  because  concrete  and 
because  it  is  adapted  to  the  stage  of  development  of  the  particu- 
lar boys  and  girls  before  him.  Dr.  Hall  has  inoculated  science 
teachers  with  a  new  ideal  and  everywhere  books  and  teachers 
are  suggesting  new  points  of  view.  He  writes:1  "The 
normal  boy  in  the  teens  is  essentially  in  the  popular  science  age. 
He  wants  and  needs  great  wholes,  facts  in  profusion,  but  few 
formulae.  He  would  go  far  to  see  scores  and  hundreds  of  demon- 
strative experiments  made  in  physics,  and  would  like  to  repeat 
them  in  his  own  imperfect  and  perhaps  even  clumsy  way  with- 
out being  bothered  by  equations.  He  is  often  a  walking  interro- 
gation-point about  ether,  atoms,  X-rays,  nature  of  electricity, 
motors  of  many  kinds,  with  a  native  gravity  of  his  mind  toward 
those  frontier  questions  where  even  the  great  masters  know  as 
little  as  he.  He  is  in  the  questioning  age,  but  wants  only  answers 
that  are  vague,  brief,  but  above  all  suggestive;  and  in  all  this 
he  is  true  to  the  great  law  that  the  development  of  the  individual 
in  any  line  of  culture  tends  to  repeat  the  history  of  the  race  in 
that  field. 

"Last,  and  perhaps  most  important  of  all  for  our  purpose 
to-day,  the  high-school  boy  is  in  the  stage  of  beginning  to  be  a 
utilitarian.  The  age  of  pure  science  has  not  come  for  him,  but 
applications,  though  not  logically  first,  precede  in  the  order  of 
growth  and  interest  the  knowledge  of  laws,  forms,  and  abstrac- 
tions. He  would  know  how  the  trolley,  how  wired  and  wireless 
telegraphy  work,  and  the  steam  engine,  the  applications  of 
mechanics  in  the  intricate  mechanisms,  almost  any  of  even  the 
smaller  straps  and  buckles  in  the  complex  harnesses  science  has 
put  upon  natural  force,  charm  him.  Physics  in  the  field,  the 
street,  the  shop,  the  factory,  the  great  triumphs  of  engineering 

1  Adolescence,  vol.  II,  p.  156. 


136  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

skill,  civil,  mining,  mechanical,  inventions  in  their  embryo 
stage,  processes,  aerial  navigation,  power  developed  from  waves, 
vortexes,  molecules,  atoms,  all  these  things  which  make  man's 
reaction  to  nature  a  wonder  book,  should  be  opened  to  him; 
and,  in  frequent  conversations  and  copious  information,  we 
should  arouse  his  imagination,  for  this  is  the  organ  of  the  heart 
and  opens  up  the  way  for  reason.  The  boyhood  of  the  great 
makers  of  physics  and  astronomy,  who  have  found  out  and 
opened  a  natural  way  for  their  own  genius,  is  a  lesson  which 
most  teachers  of  physics,  I  fear,  have  not  enough  profited  by. 
The  subject-matter  of  their  curriculum  is  too  condensed,  too 
highly  peptonized  for  healthful  assimilation;  and  we  are  too 
prone  to  forget  that  we  can  only  accelerate  nature's  way,  but 
never  short-circuit  it  without  violence." 

Fundamentals  in  Music. — Music  teaching  in  the  schools, 
though  rapidly  being  placed  on  a  more  natural  basis,  was  for  a 
time  in  great  danger  of  being  a  menace  instead  of  a  blessing. 
As  soon  as  it  was  given  a  place  in  the  schools,  teachers  began  to 
provide  ultra-logically  arranged  courses.  They  sought  for  text- 
books to  put  in  the  hands  of  the  children,  and  the  publishers, 
with  an  eye  to  business,  immediately  provided  them.  The 
method  became  hypernormalized,  and  was  in  great  danger  of 
becoming  thus  crystallized,  when  child-study  experts  raised  their 
voices  in  protest.  Thanks  to  the  new  doctrines,  a  more  scientific 
view-point  has  been  glimpsed  by  many  music  supervisors  and 
music  bids  fair  to  occupy  an  important  place  in  education. 

According  to  the  logical  method,  children  are  first  required  to 
learn  note  reading — the  science  of  music.  They  are  even  re- 
quired to  write  music.  For  these  kinds  of  work  they  are  wholly 
unprepared.  While  they  are  right  in  the  nascent  stage  for 
learning  to  sing  songs  by  rote — to  make  music  a  means  of  emo- 
tional expression,  in  many  schools  they  are  given  no  opportunity 
to  do  this  until  after  mastering  the  science.  The  result  is  that 
under  such  methods  few  ever  acquire  any  taste  for  expressing 
themselves  in  song.  Children  should  be  allowed  and  encour- 
aged to  lift  up  their  hearts  and  voices  in  joy,  praise,  and  thanks- 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO   ACCESSORY      137 

giving.  The  beginning  of  musical  education  should  be  in 
allowing  the  child  to  make  a  joyful  noise  unto  the  Lord!  The 
most  cursory  observation  of  plantation  negroes  should  tell  us 
what  is  most  fundamental  in  music.  The  wonderful  results 
attained  by  that  apparently  hap-hazard  method  ought  to  give 
us  food  for  reflection.  In  Germany  no  factor  so  much  as  early 
training  in  singing  has  contributed  to  the  development  of  fealty 
to  fatherland.  Everybody  is  encouraged  to  sing — school- 
children, university  students,  soldiers,  sailors,  the  peasants  in 
the  fields — all  sing.  People  have  sung  for  ages.  All  primitive 
peoples  sing.  Rhythmic  motion  and  song  are  among  the  most 
primitive  fundamental  forms  of  social  expression.  Written 
music  is  a  very  late  invention — relatively  accessory.  Education 
should  heed  the  lesson.  Most  assuredly  children  should  have 
an  opportunity  to  learn  the  science  of  music  as  well  as  the 
sciences  of  arithmetic,  grammar,  and  physics,  but  like  those  it 
should  come  after  the  fundamental  facts  have  been  acquired  as 
an  art.  In  many  schools  the  order  of  procedure  has  been,  and 
is  still  being,  reversed.  Happily,  a  better  movement  has  begun. 
Drawing. — Drawing  is  another  subject  in  which  the  natural 
order  of  development  has  been  violated.  The  system  in  vogue 
until  a  few  years  ago  was  one  based  wholly  on  logical  considera- 
tions. The  first  exercises  consisted  of  the  attempt  to  construct 
a  straight  line.  After  practice  on  isolated  straight  lines,  com- 
binations were  made  into  a  surface  drawing,  and  later  a  repre- 
sentation of  a  solid.  Curved  lines  were  taken  up  similarly  and 
the  various  isolated  elements  synthesized  into  combinations  of 
some  sort.  Usually  for  a  long  time  the  combinations  repre- 
sented no  particular  object,  sometimes  purely  conventional 
designs.  No  attempt  at  representing  objects  was  permitted 
until  all  the  elements  were  supposedly  mastered.  That  is,  the 
grammar  of  the  science  was  the  starting-point;  the  use  of  draw- 
ing as  a  mode  of  expression  of  ideas  was  the  end  to  be  later 
achieved.  That  few  ever  became  artists  under  this  system,  and 
that  many  became  disgusted,  is  well  known  by  those  who  partici- 
pated in  it. 


138  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

At  the  present  time,  thanks  to  child  study,  the  whole  view- 
point is  changed.  A  study  of  the  art  of  primitive  peoples  and  of 
children  shows  conclusively  that  the  art  impulse  develops  genet- 
ically, not  logically.  The  savage  man  and  the  child  begin 
pencilling,  not  because  they  wish  to  study  the  science  of  drawing, 
but  because  they  have  something  in  their  minds  which  they  wish 
to  express.  Ideo-motor  processes  growing  out  of  visual  images 
prompt  them  almost  reflexly  to  utilize  drawing  as  a  means 
of  expression.  Here  is  the  starting-point.  First  a  rude  pencil- 
ling of  something  which  they  are  prompted  to  express;  a  rep- 
resentation of  an  object-whole — imperfect  at  first,  of  course. 
Just  as  in  learning  to  walk  and  to  talk  the  child  does  not  begin 
analytically,  he  does  not  begin  analytically  to  draw.  This  comes 
later  when  he  studies  the  processes  scientifically.  Teachers  of 
writing  have  also  hindered  the  progress  of  children  and  created 
distaste  by  analyzing  the  letters  altogether  too  early  and  requir- 
ing perfection  before  employing  writing  as  a  means  of  expression. 
Spencer  pointed  out  the  absurdities  and  vices  of  teaching  draw- 
ing by  the  logical  method.  He  wrote: 1  "  It  has  been  well  said 
concerning  the  custom  of  prefacing  the  art  of  speaking  any 
tongue  by  a  drilling  in  the  parts  of  speech  and  their  functions, 
that  it  is  about  as  reasonable  as  prefacing  the  art  of  walking 
by  a  course  of  lessons  on  the  bones,  muscles,  and  nerves  of  the 
legs;  and  much  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  proposal  to 
preface  the  art  of  representing  objects  by  a  nomenclature  and 
definitions  of  the  lines  which  they  yield  on  analysis." 

In  illustration  of  the  whole  sequence  of  development,  Spencer 
has  given  us  a  few  suggestive  principles  of  procedure,  which 
have  been  widely  quoted,  but  unfortunately  too  little  understood. 
They  are  the  following: 2 

i.  Proceed  from  the  simple  to  the  complex. — He  says  that  like 
everything  else,  the  mind  grows  from  the  homogeneous  to  the 
heterogeneous.  Only  a  few  of  the  mind's  powers  are  active  at 
first.  The  others  unfold  gradually.  Consequently,  instruction 
should  begin  with  the  simplest  elements  and  gradually  include 

1  Education,  p.  144.  2  Education,  p.  120. 


FROM  FUNDAMENTAL  TO   ACCESSORY      139 

additional  ones.  All  these  elements  should  be  carried  on 
abreast.  Or,  as  Comenius  contended,  the  elements  of  all  sub- 
jects should  be  begun  early  and  gradually  widened  in  their  extent 
and  complexity.  This  is  approximately  the  spiral  plan  of  the 
Germans. 

2.  Instruction  should  proceed  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract. — 
He  says  with  truth  that  "unfortunately  there  has  been  much 
misunderstanding  on  this  point.  General  formulas  which  men 
have  devised  to  express  groups  of  details,  and  which  have 
severally  simplified  their  conceptions  by  uniting  many  facts  into 
one  fact,  they  have  supposed  must  simplify  the  conceptions  of 
the  child  also;  quite  forgetting  that  a  generalization  is  simple 
only  in  comparison  with  the  whole  mass  of  particular  truths  it 
comprehends — that  it  is  more  complex  than  any  one  of  these 
truths  taken  singly — that  only  after  many  of  these  single  truths 
have  been  acquired  does  the  generalization  ease  the  memory 
and  help  the  reason — and  that  to  the  child  not  possessing  these 
single  truths  it  is  necessarily  a  mystery."  He  shows  how 
teachers  continually  err  by  setting  out  with  "first  principles" 
rather  than  with  examples  which  should  lead  up  to  the  principles. 
Rote  teaching,  giving  of  rules  and  generalizations  before  facts 
and  processes  out  of  which  general  notions  or  concepts  are 
elaborated,  as  Spencer  hinted,  is  altogether  too  common  a  pro- 
cedure. "General  truths,"  he  wrote,  "to  be  of  due  and  perma- 
nent use,  must  be  earned."  They  must  be  born  in  each  indi- 
vidual's own  mind  and  grow  out  of  the  individual  experiences 
acquired  through  the  learner's  self-activity.1 

'See  further  the  chapter  on  "Induction,"   and  McMurry's  Method  of  the 
Recitation. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION 

Illustrations  and  Meaning  of  Instinct. — It  is  a  matter  of  com- 
mon observation  that  the  lower  animals  perform  many  activities 
without  any  previous  training  on  the  part  of  the  individual. 
These  activities  apparently  are  performed  in  a  definite  and  uni- 
form manner  by  all  members  of  the  species.  Among  typical 
illustrations  we  may  cite  the  beaver  building  its  dam  when  of  a 
certain  age,  at  a  certain  time  of  the  year,  and  in  a  tolerably 
definite  manner.  The  wild-goose  migrates  southward  every 
year,  and  again  in  the  spring  its  well-known  honk  may  be  heard 
as  the  flock  seeks  northern  latitudes.  Honey-bees  build  their 
comb  in  an  apparently  invariable  way  from  year  to  year;  wasps, 
bumblebees,  yellow- jackets,  hornets,  each  have  characteristic 
ways  of  constructing  their  nests  and  of  gathering  food.  Birds 
of  a  given  species  build  nests  peculiar  to  themselves;  dogs  bury 
bones;  hyenas  are  ever  vigilant;  cats  play  with  captured  mice; 
cattle,  deer,  and  other  animals,  are  afraid  of  red  objects,  etc. 
Many  animals  possess  at  birth,  or  almost  immediately  after, 
fully  developed  reactions  for  food-getting,  and  many  exhibit 
very  early  attempts  at  self-protection  from  supposed  foes.  The 
foregoing  activities  are  denominated  as  instinctive,  and  instinct 
may  be  defined  in  a  preliminary  way  as  follows:  Instinct  is  an 
inborn  tendency  on  the  part  of  a  given  individual  to  act  in  a 
certain  way  under  given  stimuli  without  any  foresight  (neces- 
sarily) of  the  end  to  be  accomplished,  and  without  any  previous 
education  on  the  part  of  the  individual. 

Marshall  l  has  given  the  following  discriminating  definition: 
"Instincts  are  forces  within  us  which  are  organic,  which  appear 

1  Instinct  am!  Reason,  p.  68. 
140 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  141 

in  us  because  we  are  organisms;  which  lead  us  to  undertake, 
without  forethought,  actions  of  a  very  complex  nature  involving 
the  movement  of  many  parts  of  the  body  in  relations  which  are 
more  or  less  fixed,  actions  which,  as  the  biologists  say,  are  more 
or  less  thoroughly  co-ordinated."  He  illumined  the  question 
still  further  by  saying  *  that,  "Our  instincts  are  springs  of  action 
which  exist  within  the  organism:  our  instinct  actions  occur 
because  we  are  organisms,  and  because  as  organisms  we  inherit 
with  our  organic  structure  habits  of  action  which  lead  to  the 
attainment  of  certain  ends  which  have  significance  for  the 
organism;  and  we  inherit  these  habits  in  general  because  our 
ancestors  have  become  better  adapted  to  their  environment  in 
consequence  of  the  recurrence  of  these  tendencies  to  act  in 
certain  specific  ways  upon  the  appearance  of  appropriate 
stimuli." 

Paulsen  wrote  of  instinct:  "The  bee  knows  nothing  of  the 
brood  of  winter,  and  has  no  insight  into  the  processes  of  nutrition; 
she  is  guided  in  all  her  activity,  in  her  search  for  blossoms,  the 
construction  of  her  cells,  the  feeding  of  her  offspring,  by  percep- 
tions and  traces  of  recollection,  which  are  represented  physio- 
logically as  nervous  processes  and  dispositions."  2  In  other 
words,  instincts  are  race  habits,  impulses,  or  tendencies  toward 
activity  in  a  given  direction  because  of  ancestral  experience 
which  has  become  so  implanted  in  the  race  as  to  make  its 
appearance  in  the  individual  a  matter  wholly  reflex  in  character. 
The  animal  acts  in  a  given  way  because  its  nervous  mechanism 
functions  in  a  predetermined  manner. 

Not  Individual  Education  or  Prevision. — It  is  a  popular  notion 
that  animals  which  exhibit  instincts  possess  a  clear  foresight  of 
the  ends  to  be  accomplished.  "If  the  bee  did  not  know  that  it 
must  store  up  honey  for  a  certain  purpose,  why  should  it  be  so 
diligent?"  "Why  should  the  beaver  build  its  dam  if  not  for 
definite  self-protection  and  for  protection  of  the  expected 
young  ?"  "  Why  should  the  ant  store  up  food  except  for  the  long 
winter?"  (It  is  not  because  the  ant  is  lethargic  all  winter  and 

1  Instinct  and  Reason,  p.  219.  2  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  114. 


i42  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

needs  no  food.)  Apparently  common  sense  has  a  case  against 
us.  But  we  could  cite  much  evidence  to  show  that  the  same 
animals  perform  instinctive  actions  when  there  is  absolutely  no 
possibility  of  such  foresight.  Among  cases  which  show  the 
utter  irrationality  of  instinctive  actions  the  following  are  typical: 
Well-fed  domesticated  dogs  will  bury  bones,  old  shoes,  etc., 
when  no  necessity  exists  for  providing  against  future  contingen- 
cies. They  will  do  these  things  without  having  had  a  chance  to 
imitate  other  dogs.  As  all  farmers  know,  hens  will  often  spend 
much  valuable  time  in  sitting  for  weeks  upon  a  rude  nest  with  a 
china  egg  and  acting  as  important  and  cross  as  if  the  mother  of 
a  brood  of  a  dozen.  Hens  hatched  in  incubators  and  without 
opportunity  to  imitate  the  act  will  perform  it  just  as  certainly 
and  naturally  as  if  such  opportunity  had  existed.  Now  were 
the  act  rational  and  not  reflex  no  hen  would  exhibit  such  stupid- 
ity. Its  organism  was  simply  keyed  in  a  certain  manner  and 
it  had  to  act  in  harmony  with  such  demands. 

Lloyd  Morgan  cites  the  case  of  the  Yucca  moth,  which  per- 
forms certain  activities  but  once  in  a  lifetime  and  those  without 
any  possibility  of  education.  The  insects  emerge  from  their 
chrysalis-cases  just  when  the  flower  opens,  each  for  a  single  night. 
From  the  anthers  of  one  of  these  flowers  the  female  moth  collects 
the  golden  pollen  and  in  the  pistil  of  another  deposits  her  eggs 
among  the  ovules.  The  action  seems  to  be  the  result  of  fore- 
knowledge. This  fertilization  of  the  flower  is  as  necessary  as 
the  fertilization  of  clover  blossoms  by  bumblebees.  "These 
marvellously  adaptive  instinctive  activities  of  the  Yucca  moth 
are  performed  but  once  in  her  life,  and  that  without  instruction, 
with  no  opportunities  of  learning  by  imitation,  and,  apparently, 
without  prevision  of  what  will  be  the  outcome  of  her  behavior; 
for  she  has  no  experience  of  the  subsequent  fate  of  the  eggs  she 
lays,  and  cannot  be  credited  with  any  knowledge  of  the  effect  of 
the  pollen  upon  the  ovules."  1  There  are  numberless  cases  of 
insects  which  pass  through  various  metamorphoses,  that  per- 
form perfectly  and  almost  invariably  certain  activities,  although 

1  Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  14. 


INSTINCT.  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION   143 

none  of  a  given  generation  have  ever  seen  any  of  a  preceding 
generation. 

Habits,  Reflexes,  and  Instincts  Compared. — A  habit  is  a 
resultant  of  the  education  of  the  individual,  while  instincts  are 
the  resultants  of  accumulated  race  experiences.  These  experi- 
ences are  conserved  and  accumulated  through  natural  and 
artificial  selection  and,  according  to  eminent  authorities  like 
Romanes,  through  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters. 
This  last  view  is  as  strongly  denied  by  able  men  like  Weismann. 
To  produce  a  habit  the  individual  must  repeat  a  given  series  of 
actions  a  sufficient  number  of  times  to  establish  an  easy  path- 
way of  discharge  in  the  nervous  system.  Instinctive  tendencies 
often  have  a  marked  influence  in  facilitating  the  formation  of 
some  habits. 

Reflex  action  is  non- voluntary  and  usually  controlled  by  lower 
centres  of  the  nervous  system  and  not  by  the  higher  brain  centres. 
I  touch  a  hot  stove.  An  impulse  is  sent  toward  the  cortex,  but 
when  it  reaches  the  spinal  cord  a  current  there  generated  inner- 
vates the  muscle,  causing  me  to  withdraw  my  hand.  In  reflec- 
tive, voluntary  action  the  higher  brain  centres  are  brought  into 
requisition.  In  a  reflex  the  response  to  a  stimulus  is  indefinite. 
The  reaction  may  be  for  the  good  of  the  individual  or  it  may  not. 
It  may  or  may  not  accomplish  an  apparently  determined  end, 
as  in  winking  to  avoid  injury  to  the  eye.  The  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  the  two  is  not  sharply  drawn.  Undoubtedly  many 
apparently  purely  individual  reflexes  have  much  of  the  instinctive 
element  in  them,  and  all  instinctive  actions  are  of  the  reflex 
type.  Spencer  has  denominated  instinct  as  compound  reflex 
action.  According  to  this  interpretation  the  difference  may  be 
explained  in  the  words  of  Lloyd  Morgan:  " Reflex  acts  arc 
local  responses  due  to  specialized  stimuli,  while  instinctive 
activities  are  matters  of  more  general  behavior  and  usually  in- 
volving a  larger  measure  of  central  (as  opposed  to  merely  local 
or  ganglionic)  co-ordination,  and  due  to  the  more  widely  spread 
effects  of  stimuli  in  which  both  external  and  internal  factors  co- 
operate." 


144  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

"It  would  seem,  therefore,  that,  whereas  a  reflex  act — such, 
for  example,  as  the  winking  of  the  eye  when  an  object  is  seen  to 
approach  it  rapidly — is  a  restricted  and  localized  response,  in- 
volving a  particular  organ  or  a  definite  group  of  muscles,  and  is 
initiated  by  a  more  or  less  specialized  external  stimulus;  an 
instinctive  activity  is  a  response  of  the  organism  as  a  whole,  and 
involves  the  co-operation  of  several  organs  and  many  groups  of 
muscles.  Initiated  by  an  external  stimulus  or  a  group  of  stim- 
uli, it  is,  at  any  rate  in  many  cases,  determined  also  in  greater 
degree  than  reflex  action  by  an  internal  factor  which  causes  un- 
easiness or  distress,  more  or  less  marked,  if  it  do  not  find  its 
normal  instinctive  satisfaction."  1 

Instincts  not  Invariable. — It  has  been  a  popular  notion  that 
instincts  are  fixed  and  invariable  in  a  given  species  in  all  its 
individuals  and  through  successive  generations.  Nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  truth.  Instead  of  coming  ready-made  once 
for  all,  we  find  that  they  are  products  of  evolutionary  forces. 
They  come  into  existence,  are  subject  to  modifications,  and  may 
atrophy  or  decay,  leaving  only  vestigial  evidence  or  none  what- 
soever of  their  existence. 

Marshall  says  that: 2  "The  definiteness  and  the  invariability 
of  the  co-ordination  of  these  actions  are  relative  definiteness  and 
relative  invariability  only.  This  became  evident  when  it  was 
noted  that  trfe  efficiency  of  many  instincts  even  of  the  lower  types 
depends  upon  the  trend  of  the  activities  they  induce  even  where 
there  is  a  certain  degree  of  variation  in  circumstances  of  stimula- 
tion, or  in  the  stimuli  themselves,  and  consequently  in  the  reac- 
tions to  these  stimuli.  The  reader  will  remember  that  we 
illustrated  this  fact  by  recalling  to  his  mind  the  variations  of 
action  and  co-ordination  noted  in  the  young  chick  in  its  instinc- 
tive search  for  food  supply;  the  general  end  being  reached 
through  slightly  varying  co-ordinations  of  action. 

"  It  will  also  be  remembered  that  as  we  studied  instincts  of  a 
higher  type  we  found  less  definiteness  and  invariability  of 
reaction,  and  a  marked  preponderance  of  cases  where  the 

1  Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  7.  2  Instinct  and  Reason,  p.  219. 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION   TO   EDUCATION   145 

guidance  of  our  actions  to  the  production  of  certain  ends  i<; 
attained  by  the  strengthening  of  trends  of  action  which  come  to 
persist  through  many  differences  of  stimulation  and  through 
many  variations  of  reaction." 

Genesis  of  Instincts. — Instincts  are  impulses  resulting  from 
the  conservation  of  habits  through  heredity.  Any  memory  im- 
plies habit  in  the  making.  The  fact  of  the  preservation  of  a 
tendency  to  react  at  a  subsequent  time  in  a  way  that  the  organ- 
ism has  acted  before  is  the  beginning  of  a  habit.  If  the  activities 
are  repeated  a  sufficient  number  of  times  a  genuine  habit  is 
formed.  This  habit  means  a  reflex  tendency  to  react  in  a  sim- 
ilar way  at  subsequent  times  on  similar  occasions.  If  the  habit 
becomes  thoroughly  ingrained  and  children  are  born  subse- 
quent to  its  formation,  the  tendency  is  transmitted.  This  he- 
reditary tendency  or  impulse  is  an  instinct.  If  the  given  habit 
becomes  wide-spread  in  the  species  and  important  to  their  exist- 
ence, it  comes  in  time  to  be  a  race  habit,  or,  as  it  has  been  de- 
nominated, an  instinct.  All  habits  are  in  fact  pseudo-instincts, 
as  Marshall  has  termed  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  habits  become  universal  in  a  species 
in  order  to  become  instinctive,  although  the  universality  of  pos- 
session of  a  habit  is  a  general  criterion  of  an  instinct.  There  are 
what  may  be  termed  race,  national  and  family  instincts.  These 
are  characteristics  sufficiently  universalized  to  produce  the  he- 
reditary tendencies  in  a  given  line  of  descent.  We  speak  with 
perfect  psychological  propriety  of  the  phlegmatic  German,  the 
emotional  Frenchman,  the  stoic  Indian,  etc.  Similarly  we  may 
recognize  instinctive  family  tendencies.  These  are  often  so 
strong  as  to  mark  a  given  family  in  a  striking  manner.  Because 
of  the  origin  of  instincts  it  follows,  even,  that  each  individual 
has  some  instinctive  tendencies  peculiar  to  himself.  The 
streams  of  heredity  have  united  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the 
resultants  peculiar  to  each  individual.  In  fact  no  two  individu- 
als are  exactly  alike.  Their  instincts  function  at  varying  times, 
in  different  degrees  of  power,  are  modified  by  education  in  dif- 
ferent ways;  in  fact,  present  manifold  un-uniformities. 


146  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Instincts  Modified  through  Environment. — Although  the 
functioning  of  instincts  is  primarily  dependent  upon  the  maturity 
of  the  organism  which  causes  at  the  proper  time  impulsive 
promptings  to  action,  yet  the  influence  of  environment  must  not 
be  overlooked.  The  time  of  building  the  honeycomb,  the  time 
when  the  beaver  builds  its  dam,  the  time  when  the  wild-goose 
will  fly  northward,  the  time  when  the  parental  instincts  are  to 
manifest  themselves,  are  mainly  inherent  within  the  organisms 
themselves.  The  organisms  are  in  a  measure  like  machines 
with  time  alarms.  When  development  has  reached  a  certain 
point,  when  the  springs  have  been  compressed  to  a  certain 
tension,  release  is  sure  to  occur.  However,  environment  may 
hasten,  retard,  or  even  entirely  inhibit  functioning.  The  kind 
of  weather,  altitude,  latitude,  amount  of  sunlight,  moisture,  etc., 
all  affect  the  time  of  flowering  and  the  fruiting  periods  of  plants. 
Climate,  latitude,  and  conditions  of  nutrition  affect  the  time 
of  maturity  in  animals  and  human  beings.  It  is  well  known 
that  peoples  in  torrid  zones  mature  and  decline  earlier  than  in 
temperate  zones.  The  difference  between  the  ordinary  worker 
bees  and  the  queen  of  the  hive  is  largely  one  of  nutrition.  All 
the  workers  possess  potentialities  which  if  nourished  would 
have  caused  them  to  develop  into  maternal  bees.  Within  the 
first  eight  days  of  existence  the  larvae  destined  to  become  workers 
could  by  such  feeding  as  the  queen  larvae  receive,  be  developed 
into  sexually-perfect  queens,  capable  of  reproduction.  When  a 
queen  dies,  the  workers  by  royal  feeding  develop  a  queen  from 
worker  larva?.  The  potentialities  of  either  worker  or  queen  are 
inherited,  and  the  particular  development  is  determined  by  a 
little  more  or  less  nourishment. 

House  martens  now  build  their  nests  beneath  the  eaves 
of  houses  while  formerly  they  lived  in  rocky  haunts.  Barn 
swallows  also  build  their  mud  abodes  beneath  the  eaves  of  barns. 
This  they  cannot  have  done  long  because  barns  are  a  modern 
invention.  Chimney  swallows  must  have  had  a  different  method 
of  nest-building  before  the  invention  of  chimneys.  Domestic 
ducks  in  Ceylon  have  lost  their  former  natural  love  for  water 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION   147 

and  are  entirely  terrestrial  in  their  habits,  while  some  other 
ducks  have  been  known  to  forsake  their  marshy  haunts  and  build 
their  nests  in  trees,  bringing  their  young  to  the  water  on  their 
backs.  Certain  species  of  Australian  parrots  that  were  honey- 
feeders  have  become  fat-feeders  since  the  development  of  the 
sheep  industry  which  enables  them  to  prey  upon  the  carcasses 
of  dead  sheep.  They  have  learned  to  select  unerringly  certain 
portions  of  the  carcass  which  afford  the  choicest  morsels.  The 
polar  bear  has  learned  to  bite  its  prey  instead  of  hugging  as 
other  bears  do.  Many  transformations  in  process  in  whales, 
seals,  dolphins,  etc.,  were  alluded  to  in  a  former  section. 

Darwin  said  apropos  of  this: *  "Hardly  any  animal  is  more 
difficult  to  tame  than  the  young  of  the  wild  rabbit;  scarcely  any 
animal  is  tamer  than  the  young  of  the  tame  rabbit;  but  I  can 
hardly  suppose  that  domestic  rabbits  have  often  been  selected 
for  tameness  alone;  so  that  we  must  attribute  at  least  the 
greater  part  of  the  inherited  change  from  extreme  wildness  to  ex- 
treme tameness,  to  habit  and  long-continued  close  confinement." 

Modification  of  Instincts  through  Education. — The  domestica- 
tion of  wild  animals  affords  a  vast  array  of  most  important  illus- 
trations of  the  transformation  of  habits,  instincts,  and  even  of 
structure.  The  testimony  should  be  very  suggestive  of  the 
possibilities  of  race  transformation  in  the  human  species. 
Domestic  horses  have  lost  most  of  their  primitive  wildness  and 
the  new  instincts  of  docility  render  them  of  inestimable  service 
to  man.  The  cat  in  its  wild  state  is  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most 
untamable  of  creatures,  but  once  domesticated  it  is  one  of  the 
gentlest,  and  most  attached  to  man.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  th^ 
fierceness  and  restlessness  of  the  wolf  and  the  jackal  to  the  do- 
mestic dog,  but  the  ancestry  of  the  latter  can  easily  be  traced  to 
the  former.  Contrast  the  sneaking,  ferocious  denizens  of  the 
forest  with  well-bred  shepherd  or  Newfoundland  dogs  which 
display  such  affection,  fidelity,  and  sagacity  in  protecting  the 
interests  of  their  masters.  Even  among  domestic  dogs  we  find 
great  plasticity  and  variability  of  instincts  and  structure — all 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  211, 


i48  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

the  result  of  definite  attempts  to  produce  and  conserve  desira- 
ble characteristics.  Think  of  the  special  instincts  of  the  New- 
foundland as  compared  with  the  greyhound;  those  of  the  collie 
with  pointers  and  setters;  and  each  of  these  as  compared  with 
pugs,  poodles,  and  terriers.  Each  shows  the  results  of  genera- 
tions of  education,  conservation,  and  selection. 

Should  there  be  any  tendency  to  raise  objections  that  many  of 
these  special  characteristics  are  the  result  of  individual  training 
rather  than  instinct,  it  must  be  emphasized  again  that  the  special 
tendencies  of  different  breeds  show  themselves  unfailingly  even 
when  the  dogs  are  isolated  from  all  others  when  young.  Romanes 
shows  conclusively  how  young  coach-dogs  will  spontaneously  run 
around  and  bark  at  horses,  how  pointers  will  point,  and  setters 
will  set.  He  even  shows  how  special  traits  come  to  be  inherited 
in  particular  families  of  dogs.  He  quotes  from  Darwin's  MSS. 
the  following:  "The  Rev.  W.  Darwin  Fox  tells  me  that  he  had 
a  Skye,  terrier  which  when  begging  rapidly  moved  her  paws  in  a 
way  very  different  from  that  of  any  other  dog  which  he  had  ever 
seen;  her  puppy,  which  never  could  have  seen  her  mother  beg, 
now  when  full  grown  performs  the  same  peculiar  movement 
exactly  in  the  same  way."  l  In  speaking  of  the  tumbling  instinct 
peculiar  to  certain  pigeons,  he  remarks  much  to  the  point:  "It 
would  be  as  impossible  to  teach  one  kind  of  pigeon  to  tumble 
as  to  teach  another  kind  to  inflate  its  crop  to  the  enormous 
size  which  the  pouter  pigeon  habitually  does."  2  In  time  the 
world  will  come  to  understand  that  functions,  and  among  them 
instinctive  functions,  are  as  distinctly  heritable  as  structures,  and 
moreover,  that  they  begin,  grow,  and  develop  in  precisely  the 
same  way. 

Instincts  and  Intelligence  in  Animals. — Although  the  lower 
animals  possess  a  large  number  of  ready-made  instinctive  reac- 
tions which  they  utilize  in  their  life  activities,  yet  it  must  not  be 
concluded  that  all  their  actions  are  blind  and  that  nothing  of 
rationality  is  manifested.  Instincts  are  the  fundamental  guiding 
powers,  but  intelligence,  often  of  a  high  degree,  modifies  and 

1  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  pp.  186  and  189.  a  Ibid. 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  149 

to  some  extent  determines  the  particular  direction  in  which  the 
action  shall  issue.  Even  the  lowest  animals  add  to  instinct 
through  education  which  the  vicissitudes  of  environment  make 
necessary.  This  education  further  lays  hold  of  and,  to  some 
degree,  controls  the  instincts.  Of  course,  the  types  of  reaction 
are  determined  by  latent  potentialities,  but  the  details  often 
exhibit  great  inhibition  and  control.  Romanes's  entire  volume 
on  animal  intelligence  is  a  forceful  argument  against  the  theory 
of  blind  instinct  dominating  the  life  of  the  lower  animals.  Many 
marvellous  adaptations  which  could  only  result  from  intelligence 
are  recorded  by  Romanes,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  Lloyd  Morgan, 
and  many  other  writers  of  reputation.  Even  in  man  shall  we 
not  say  that  the  types  of  reaction  are  largely  predetermined  by 
race  habits?  The  applications,  however,  become  so  controlled 
by  the  life  of  reason  and  the  directions  so  complex  as  to  obscure 
their  origins. 

To  show  that  the  instincts  of  lower  animals  may  be  supple- 
mented by  intelligence,  I  quote  from  some  of  the  observations 
and  experiments  of  Huber  on  bees  which  are  cited  by  Eimer: 1 
"  Once  the  bees  had  made  on  a  wooden  surface  the  beginning  of 
two  combs,  one  to  the  right,  the  other  to  the  left,  in  such  a  way 
that  the  latter  should  support  an  anterior,  the  former  a  posterior 
comb,  and  the  two  when  finished  should  be  separated  by  the 
usual  distance  bet\veen  two  combs  in  a  hive.  But  the  bees 
found  that  they  had  not  allowed  sufficient  distance.  What  did 
they  do  in  order  to  avoid  losing  the  work  already  done  ?  They 
joined  the  beginnings  of  the  two  combs  into  one.  The  curvature 
necessarily  produced  was  in  the  continuation  of  the  comb  com- 
pletely levelled,  so  that  the  lower  part  of  the  comb  became  as 
regular  as  one  properly  commenced." 

Eimer  says  further  that:  "The  skill  of  the  garden  spider  in 
building  her  web  no  doubt  depends  on  instinct,  but  only  with 
regard  to  the  main  process:  here  also  reflection  is  exercised  on 
many  points.  In  the  mere  choice  of  the  place  where  the  net  is 
to  be  spread  the  spider  needs  to  take  many  things  into  consicl- 

1  Organic  Evolution,  p.  291. 


150  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

eration:  direction  of  wind,  sunlight,  abundance  of  insects,  and, 
above  all,  the  assurance  that  the  web  will  be  safe  from  disturb- 
ance in  the  place  selected,  require  a  host  of  intelligent  conclu- 
sions— the  question  of  security  from  disturbance  alone  requires 
a  number.  And  yet  how  correctly  the  spiders  usually  judge  in 
this  very  respect." 

Wallace  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  migrating  birds  do 
not  fly  unerringly  to  desirable  regions.  He  says : 1  "  Thousands 
annually  fly  out  to  sea  and  perish,  showing  that  the  instinct  to 
migrate  is  imperfect,  and  is  not  a  good  substitute  for  reason  and 
observation."  Romanes  remarks  that:  "Instincts  are  not  rig- 
idly fixed,  but  are  plastic,  and  their  plasticity  renders  them 
capable  of  improvement  or  of  alternation,  according  as  intelligent 
observation  requires."  "Thus  we  see  that  the  oldest  and  most 
important  instincts  in  bees  and  birds  admit  of  being  greatly 
modified,  both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race,  by  intelligent 
adaptation  to  changed  conditions  of  life;  and  therefore  we  can 
scarcely  doubt  that  the  principle  of  lapsing  intelligence  must  be 
of  much  assistance  to  that  of  natural  selection  in  the  origination 
and  development  of  instincts."  2  Conversely  it  must  not  be 
supposed  that  man  acts  without  instinctive  impulses  and  solely 
from  intelligent  guidance.  The  next  paragraph  shows  very 
clearly  the  part  played  by  instinct  in  man. 

Instincts  not  Confined  to  Animals  below  Man. — Instincts  are 
ascribed  by  the  uneducated  only  to  animals.  Because  man 
comes  into  the  world  a  very  helpless  creature  and  remains  so  for 
such  a  long  period,  it  is  thought  that  human  beings  possess  no 
instincts.  These  traits  are  thought  to  be  special  provisions  for 
the  guidance  of  the  animals  lower  than  man.  But  although  man 
is  not  limited  to  habitual  reactions,  either  racial  or  individually 
acquired,  he  possesses  even  more  instincts  than  other  animals. 
The  reason  we  do  not  recognize  instinctive  traits  in  man  is 
because  they  are  exceedingly  complex,  rendered  so  through 
modification  by  each  other,  by  habits,  and  by  education. 

1  Darwinism,  p.  442. 

2  "  The  Darwinian  Theory  of  Instinct,"  Essays,  p.  42. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  151 

James  has  said  that  man  possesses  all  the  instincts  of  the  lower 
animals  and  many  more.  This  is  not  literally  true.  Even 
though  man  were  a  direct  descendant  of  all  the  lower  animals, 
we  should  have  to  remember  that  recapitulation  is  not  complete. 
Many  organs  and  functions  have  been  exercised  in  the  course 
of  evolution.  Old  instincts  have  died  out  and  new  ones  have 
been  born.  It  would,  however,  be  correct  to  say  that  man 
possesses  as  many  instincts  as  the  lower  animals  and  vastly 
more.  Instincts  are  simply  potencies  or  impulses  which  cause 
the  individual  to  act  in  particular  directions.  Abilities  in  music 
or  mathematics  are  just  as  truly  instincts  as  the  phenomena  of 
nest-building  by  birds  or  the  spinning  of  webs  by  spiders.  Wundt 
says  that  "the  human  being  is  permeated  through  and  through 
with  instinctive  action,  determined  in  part,  however,  by  intelli- 
gence and  volition."  * 

Human  Instincts. — Among  the  most  readily  apparent  human 
instincts  the  following  are  typical:  Sucking,  biting,  clasping 
with  fingers  or  toes,  carrying  objects  to  the  mouth  in  childhood, 
crying,  smiling,  protrusion  of  the  lips,  frowning,  gesturing, 
holding  the  head  erect,  sitting  up,  standing,  creeping,  walking, 
climbing,  imitation,  talking,  emulation,  rivalry,  pugnacity, 
anger,  resentment,  sympathy,  the  hunting  instinct,  migration; 
a  great  many  fears  or  phobias,  as  of  high  places,  dark  places, 
strange  objects;  acquisitiveness,  construed veness,  play,  curios- 
ity, gregariousness,  bashfulness,  cleanliness,  modesty,  shame, 
love,  parental  feelings,  home-making,  jealousy,  pity.  The  list 
might  be  made  vastly  longer.  In  fact,  man  is  a  great  complex 
of  tendencies  to  acting,  feeling,  and  thinking  in  a  great  variety 
of  directions.  These  impulses  are  all  instincts.  Should  some 
one  argue  that  such  a  phenomenon  as  speech  is  not  instinctive, 
but  a  result  of  imitation,  I  would  make  the  rejoinder:  "Then 
why  does  not  my  dog  learn  to  speak  the  same  as  my  child?" 
They  both  have  the  opportunity  of  hearing  and  imitating.  The 
very  fact  that  my  child  learns  to  speak  wrhile  my  dog  does  not  is 
evidence  that  my  child  possesses  a  potentiality  which  my  dog 

1  Lectures  on  Human  and  Animal  Psychology. 


152  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

does  not  possess.  This  tendency  or  impulse  is  an  instinct. 
Why  is  it  possible  for  the  cat  carried  miles  away  in  a  bag  to 
find  its  way  back  unerringly  ?  Or  why  can  the  homing  pigeon 
and  the  bee  fly  in  "bee  lines,"  while  we  human  beings  make 
such  sorry  mistakes  concerning  directions?  Because  the  cat, 
the  pigeon,  and  the  bee  have  potentialities  which  we  do  not 
possess. 

Any  activities  or  tendencies  to  action  which  are  universally 
possessed  by  a  race  or  species, — which  do  not  have  to  be  learned 
by  the  individuals,  or  which  are  learned  by  individuals  with 
great  readiness,  may  be  considered  as  instincts. 

Some  Special  Human  Instincts. — Vital  reactions. — After  hav- 
ing shown  how  universal  and  fundamental  are  instinctive  tenden- 
cies, an  attempt  will  now  be  made  to  indicate  something  of  their 
educational  significance.  A  few  typical  instincts  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  detail,  but  the  educational  bearings  must  necessarily 
be  on  broad  general  lines. 

Among  the  earliest  human  instincts  to  be  exhibited  are  those 
of  sucking  and  swallowing.  These  are  absolutely  necessary  for 
self-preservation  and  are  about  as  deep-seated  as  the  automatic 
cardiac  movements,  the  respiratory  and  intestinal  movements. 
Some  children  have  been  observed  to  suck  the  thumb  within 
three  minutes  after  birth.  To  be  sure,  sucking  and  swallowing 
await  the  action  of  a  stimulus.  Until  there  is  excitation  of  the 
proper  organs  there  is  no  manifestation  of  the  instinctive  activity. 
But  is  not  the  same  true  of  pulmonary  action,  of  heart  and  vas- 
cular action,  and  of  intestinal  action  ?  The  pulmonary  muscles 
and  the  cardiac  muscles  do  not  begin  to  act  until  stimulated. 
Purely  physical  forces  cause  the  air  to  fill  the  vacuum  in  the 
nose,  mouth,  bronchial  tubes,  and  lungs.  Thus  stimulated, 
the  mechanism,  functionally  mature,  is'  set  in  motion.  The 
circulation  awaited  similar  stimulation  (about  the  fifth  month 
of  foetal  life).  Thus  the  new  life  once  set  in  motion  beats  on, 
and  on,  and  a  prolonged  cessation  means  death.  So  the  ap- 
paratus for  sucking,  functionally  mature,  awaited  the  proper: 
stimulus  to  make  it  available  for  self-preservation. 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  153 

Grasping. — Grasping  with  fingers  and  toes  is  another  activity 
ready  to  function  at  birth.  New-born  infants  grasp  objects 
with  the  hand,  and  sometimes  even  with  the  toes.  The  ability 
to  grasp  with  the  toes  almost  dies  out  through  disuse,  but  the 
ability  to  grasp  objects  with  the  hand  develops  because  of  its 
great  importance  as  a  means  of  self-preservation.  Educationally 
it  is  also  an  important  means  of  knowledge-getting.  During  the 
first  weeks  and  months  of  the  child's  life  he  is  enabled  to  get 
a  great  many  ideas  of  the  various  qualities  of  objects:  tastes, 
hardness,  roughness,  smoothness,  shapes,  etc.  Distances  and 
sizes  are  measured  by  the  experience  gained  in  reaching,  which  is 
a  part  of  grasping,  and  in  touching.  The  experiences  thus  gained 
are  fundamental  in  all  later  knowledge  of  the  world  of  things. 
The  child  should  be  provided  with  objects  whereby  this  instinct 
may  be  exercised.  While  he  is  learning  to  seize  more  accurately 
and  to  grasp  more  firmly  and  accurately  he  is  learning  many 
ideas  that  are  basal  in  later  concepts.  The  sucking  instinct 
and  the  instinct  for  putting  everything  in  the  mouth,  although 
detrimental  in  many  instances,  still  aid  the  little  one  in  his 
exploration  of  the  material  qualities  of  things.  I  have  no- 
ticed a  child  of  seven  months  exercise  much  care  in  carry- 
ing a  rough  pine  stick  to  his  mouth.  As  soon  as  he  begins 
normally  to  grasp  after  things  he  should  be  supplied  with  various 
objects  to  handle.  This  is  especially  true  when  he  begins  to 
sit  alone. 

Locomotion. — The  instinct  for  locomotion  prompts  the  child 
to  execute  movements  which  are  destined  to  multiply  indefinitely 
his  range  of  explorations.  First  by  creeping,  crawling,  rolling, 
or  sliding  he  manages  to  propel  himself  about  his  limited  world. 
This  is,  of  course,  one  of  those  deferred  instincts  which  manifest 
themselves  only  \vhen  functional  maturity  of  the  centres  involved 
becomes  complete.  Through  a  fear  that  the  child  will  soil  his 
clothes  by  creeping,  many  mothers  very  injudiciously  discourage 
all  efforts  at  creeping  or  any  other  means  of  locomotion  other 
than  walking.  Besides  being  a  potent  means  of  strengthening 
chest-muscles,  lungs,  arms,  and  other  parts  of  the  body,  creeping 


i54  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

is  an  absolutely  necessary  means  of  education.  No  greater  sin 
could  be  committed  against  the  child  than  by  curtailing  his 
infantile  efforts  at  personal  locomotion.  By  locomotion  the 
child  not  only  acquires  accurate  knowledge  of  hundreds  of 
objects  and  their  qualities,  but  all  the  senses  are  receiving 
definite  training  and  development.  The  two  requisites  for  the 
development  of  the  senses,  as  noted  elsewhere,  are  proper 
nutriment  and  stimulation.  If  either  be  lacking  or  in  excess, 
the  results  are  detrimental.  It  would,  of  course,  be  absurd  to 
try  to  force  upon  the  child's  notice  a  multitude  of  sensory  im- 
pressions. Over-stimulation,  such  as  may  be  produced  by  too 
much  playing  with  children,  keeping  them  up  at  unseasonable 
hours,  arousing  from  sleep  to  exhibit  to  admiring  friends,  etc., 
is  positively  harmful.  It  may  produce  precocity,  but  the  final 
outcome  may  be-  unstrung  nerves  or  arrested  development. 
Too  often  the  baby  is  played  with,  in  reality  to  amuse  the  elders, 
under  the  pretext  or  the  mistaken  idea  that  the  baby  needs 
amusement.  The  rule  should  be  to  furnish  the  child  sufficient 
materials  to  satisfy  his  capricious  interests,  but  to  let  the  child 
be  the  pacemaker.  When  it  is  hard  work  to  amuse  the  baby 
something  besides  amusement  is  needed.  The  little  nerves  are 
probably  already  overwrought,  and  rest  and  quiet,  possibly 
sleep,  are  needed. 

As  soon  as  the  child  begins  to  walk,  his  ideas  begin  to  expand 
wonderfully.  Whereas  his  sense  perceptions  were  confined 
mainly  to  the  house  through  the  creeping  stage,  he  now,  if  prop- 
erly treated,  begins  to  explore  the  region  round  about,  sometimes 
to  the  annoyance  of  the  neighbors  and  the  embarrassment  of  his 
parents.  But  the  only  way  to  understand  the  world  is  to  travel. 
The  one,  child  or  adult,  who  sticks  by  the  home  fireside  always 
remains  provincial  and  circumscribed  in  ideas.  Children's 
vocabularies  are  good  indexes  of  the  extent  of  their  explorations. 
The  children  who  have  not  seen  rivers,  hills,  trees,  birds,  cows, 
and  other  animals;  trains,  engines,  and  mills,  do  not  have  these 
words  in  their  vocabularies.  A  city  child  of  even  three  years  old 
increases  its  vocabulary  and  its  stock  of  ideas  amazingly  by 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  155 

being  taken  into  the  country.  The  country  child  undergoes 
the  same  change  by  going  into  city  environment.  Thus  the 
instinct  for  locomotion  is  a  most  important  means  to  advanta- 
geous educational  ends. 

Expression. — Children  often  invent  gesture  language.  Deaf- 
mutes  also  do  so,  even  when  isolated  from  speaking  people. 
Ribot  quotes  Gerando  as  saying  that :  "  Children  of  about  seven 
years  old  who  have  not  yet  been  educated,  make  use  of  an 
astonishing  number  of  gestures  ...  in  communicating  with 
each  other."  As  a  further  illustration  of  this  spontaneous, 
natural  language,  he  says  that:  "Gerando  and  others  after 
him  remarked  that  deaf-mutes  in  their  native  state  communicate 
easily  with  one  another.  He  enumerates  a  long  series  of  ideas 
which  they  express  in  their  mimicry  and  gestures,  and  many  of 
these  expressions  are  identical  in  all  countries.'-' 1 

This  instinct  for  expression  should  receive  proper  attention. 
As  soon  as  the  child  manifests  a  desire  to  communicate  his  ideas 
in  speech,  his  crude,  spontaneous,  and  more  deliberative  attempts 
should  be  encouraged.  Instead  of  mimicking  the  child  in  his 
baby  expressions  and  helping  to  fix  the  wrong  form  in  his  mind, 
one  should  repeat  for  him  the  correct  form  distinctly  and  en- 
courage the  child  (not  nag  him)  to  imitate.  The  vocal  organs 
are  now  ripe  for  utterance  and  should  be  exercised.  If  the  child 
does  not  develop  the  speech  organs  during  this  nascent  period 
he  will  ever  be  slow,  halting,  or  deficient  in  the  use  of  words. 
Certain  it  is  that  new  words  are  accumulated  with  amazing 
rapidity  during  this  budding  period.  The  two-year-old  child 
has  amassed,  within  a  year,  from  three  hundred  to  twelve  hun- 
dred wTords,  representing  ideas,  and  may  have  as  t  many  more 
parrot-words,  i.  e.,  sounds  imitated  without  an  understanding 
of  the  meanings.  These  latter  have  been  gathered  from  rhymes, 
jingles,  and  from  conversation  not  understood  and  from  chance 
association  of  sounds  with  objects  or  actions.  Now,  even  these 
parrot-\vords  are  important,  for  they  gradually  acquire  fulness  of 
meaning.  Words  are,  as  Dr.  Harris  has  said,  like  bags;  once 

1  Evolution  o)  General  Ideas,  p.  40. 


156  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

acquired  they  hold  all  the  perceptions  and  reflections  that  relate 
to  the  idea  symbolized  by  the  word. 

Not  only  should  the  child  be  assisted  in  enunciation,  but  his 
environment  should  be  such  as  to  lead  to  the  production  of 
ideas.  Although  I  do  not  coincide  with  the  renowned  Max 
Muller  that  there  can  be  no  thinking  without  words,  yet  it  is 
doubtless  true  that  the  best  thinking  utilizes  words  as  instru- 
ments. The  child  that  is  properly  environed,  who  gratifies  his 
appetite  for  seeing,  hearing,  and  touching  things,  who  is  led  to 
think  about  these  things  (for  thinking  does  not  hurt  children), 
and  who  is  not  overstimulated,  will  as  surely  acquire  words  as 
mature  people  acquire  tools  to  accomplish  their  mechanical 
work. 

The  instinct  of  curiosity,  the  constructive  instinct,  and  the 
inborn  tendency  to  play,  all  co-operate  in  the  acquisition  of 
language.  The  child  must  see  and  examine  things  for  himself; 
he  should  not  stumble  upon  them  all  by  chance;  designedly  he 
should  be  led  to  where  things  are;  he  must  be  helped  to  see  them 
aright;  he  must  have  facts  told  about  them;  he  must  be  ques- 
tioned about  them;  and  above  all,  he  must  have  questions 
answered  that  he  will  surely  ask.  In  this  way  he  will  pick  up 
much  language;  he  will  have  given  to  him  many  new  words; 
he  will  ask  terms  from  you,  and  he  will  even  coin  them  for 
himself. 

Curiosity. — The  child,  through  his  instinctive  curiosity,  is  a 
born  investigator.  Normally  he  pulls  things  to  pieces  to  see 
how  they  are  made  and  how  they  go.  His  unwise  elders  often 
condemn  what  they  believe  to  be  innate  destructiveness,  but  he 
is  simply  trying  to  satisfy  his  craving  for  knowledge.  To  keep 
alive  this  instinct  and  further  its  normal  development  is  high 
teaching  art.  Too  often  before  the  end  of  school  life  the  instinct 
has  completely  atrophied.  To  get  the  college  student  to  desire 
to  know  is  the  most  difficult  task  before  the  college  instructor. 
Not  infrequently  before  the  college  is  reached  all  knowledge  is 
taken  in  prescribed  doses  and  largely  because  ill  consequences 
are  feared  if  directions  are  not  followed. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  157 

Curiosity  is  a  fundamental  instinct,  observable  far  down  in  the 
scale  of  animal  life.  It  is  apt  to  be  coupled  with  fear  in  the 
presence  of  strange  objects.  Who  has  not  seen  horses,  cattle, 
sheep,  and  swine  hovering  around  a  newly  discovered  and 
strange  object,  oftentimes  walking  round  and  round,  hovering 
in  its  vicinity,  but  ever  with  nerves  tense  ready  to  make  off  with 
the  greatest  speed  on  the  discovery  of  apparently  harmful  or 
undesirable  signs  ?  Any  one  who  has  tried  to  catch  a  horse  in  a 
pasture  by  luring  him  with  a  pretence  of  food  has  received  a 
lasting  remembrance  of  this  blending  of  curiosity  and  fear. 
Fowls  and  birds  exhibit  the  same  characteristics.  Small  children, 
and  even  adults,  often  manifest  similar  states.  I  have  seen  my 
child  of  one  year  cry  with  fear  on  seeing  an  umbrella,  but  no 
amount  of  persuasion  could  bring  her  away  from  its  vicinity,  so 
fascinating  it  seemed.  Many  adults  often  flirt  with  the  danger- 
ous and  uncanny  in  the  same  way.  Who  has  not  gone  through 
a  dark  wood,  a  dark  room,  all  quaking  with  fear  but  curious  to 
ferret  out  some  mystery  ?  Every  one  would  fain  take  a  turn  at 
hunting  for  spooks  in  a  haunted  house.  Sully  tells  us  that: 
"A  very  tiny  child,  on  first  making  acquaintance  with  some 
form  of  physical  pain,  as  a  bump  on  the  head,  will  deliberately 
repeat  the  experience  by  knocking  his  head  against  something 
as  if  experimenting  and  watching  the  effect."  *  This  is  clearly 
a  case  of  curiosity  overpowering  fear. 

Spencer  says :  "  Whoever  has  watched,  with  any  discernment, 
the  wide-eyed  gaze  of  the  infant  at  surrounding  objects,  knows 
very  well  that  education  does  begin  thus  early,  whether  we  intend 
it  or  not;  and  that  these  fingerings  and  suckings  of  everything  it 
can  lay  hold  of,  these  open-mouthed  listenings  to  every  sound, 
are  the  first  steps  in  the  series  which  ends  in  the  discovery  of 
unseen  planets,  the  invention  of  calculating  engines,  the  pro- 
duction of  great  paintings,  or  the  composition  of  symphonies 
and  operas.  This  activity  of  the  faculties  from  the  very  first 
being  spontaneous  and  inevitable,  the  question  is  whether  we 
shall  supply  in  due  variety  the  materials  on  which  they  may 

1  Studies  oj  Childhood,  p.  225. 


15$  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

exercise  themselves;  and  to  the  question  so  put,  none  but  an 
affirmative  answer  can  be  given."  l  Lloyd  Morgan  gives  ex- 
pression to  a  coincident  opinion  where  he  says:  "Herein,  then, 
lies  the  utility  of  the  restlessness,  the  exuberant  activity,  the 
varied  playfulness,  the  prying  curiosity,  the  inquisitiveness,  the 
meddlesome  mischievousness,  the  vigorous  and  healthy  experi- 
mentalism  of  the  young."  2 

Activity  and  Constructiveness. — A  child  of  six  months  acci- 
dentally knocks  two  tin  cans  together  and  discovers  that  he  has 
done  something.  He  immediately  strives  to  continue  this 
experiment,  and  his  beaming  countenance  gives  ample  evidence 
of  the  satisfaction  gained.  At  eight  months  my  child  acciden- 
tally dropped  a  teaspoon  upon  the  floor.  When  the  teaspoon  was 
given  to  the  child  again,  he  at  once  began  to  exert  himself  to 
repeat  the  dropping  process.  After  that,  whenever  the  spoon 
was  given  to  him  the  dropping  recurred.  Evidently  the  child's 
desire  to  repeat  the  action  was  prompted  not  so  much  by  the 
pleasurable  noise  as  the  satisfaction  of  doing  something.  From 
the  time  children  can  walk  I  have  found  them  anxious  to  do 
things  that  grown-np  people  do.  They  are  anxious  to  dust, 
sweep,  wash,  iron,  bake,  make  beds,  carry  things,  read,  write, 
and  go  on  errands.  They  are  called  lazy  a  little  later  on,  but  I 
believe  that  a  normal  healthy  child  has  not  a  lazy  fibre  in  its 
make-up.  Its  muscles,  nerves,  and  senses  are  hungry  for  exer- 
cise, and  every  effort  is  made  by  the  child  to  satisfy  these 
cravings.  The  child  may  be  lazy  in  the  sense  that  your  particu- 
lar kind  of  occupation  may  be  repugnant  to  him,  but  if  you  watch 
the  little  feet  trot  all  day  you  can  hardly  have  the  heart  to  call 
him  lazy. 

Constructiveness  is  a  fundamental  instinct  of  so  much  im- 
portance as  to  merit  special  consideration.  All  children  early 
exhibit  tendencies  toward  making  things.  I  have  noticed  a 
child  of  seven  months  trying  to  place  one  block  upon  another  in 
imitation  of  other  children.  Miss  Shinn  tells  us  that  her  niece 
as  early  as  seven  months  would  not  listen  contentedly  to  older 

1  Education,  p.  128.  2  Habit  and  Instinct,  p.  162. 


INSTINCT   IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION    159 

persons  playing  the  piano,  but  that  she  was  satisfied  only  when 
trying  it  herself.1 

In  these  inborn  tendencies  to  activity  and  constructiveness  are 
the  teacher's  and  parent's  golden  opportunities.  The  parent 
should  encourage  the  little  ones  to  help.  In  this  way  the  work 
habit  will  be  instilled,  and  by  the  time  the  child  is  five  years  of 
age  it  may  save  its  mother  many  steps  every  day.  It  can  pick 
up  and  put  away  its  own  playthings,  and  run  on  errands  (I  have 
known  four-year-olds  to  go  half  a  mile  and  purchase  correctly 
things  from  a  store  and  to  go  daily  for  little  grocery  orders  in  the 
near  neighborhood).  Most  children  are  born  carpenters;  that 
is,  the  love  of  carpenter's  tools  is  well-nigh  universally  mani- 
fested among  healthy  children.  They  want  to  hammer,  and 
saw,  and  make.  A  child  can  have  no  more  useful  educative 
appliances  than  a  hammer,  some  nails,  and  boards  into  which  he 
may  have  full  liberty  to  drive  the  nails.  I  have  noticed  children 
of  two  years  amuse  themselves  in  this  way  for  hours  at  a  time. 
They  may  not  develop  into  carpenters  when  grown  up,  but  they 
have  gained  an  education  through  the  process.  It  is  a  pity  that 
children  cannot  have  a  set  of  tools  and  that  instead  of  having 
all  their  toys,  sleds,  carts,  etc.,  made  for  them  they  are  not 
allowed  and  encouraged  to  construct  them  for  themselves. 

James  has  put  the  matter  very  aptly  in  the  following  para- 
graph: "Constructive-ness  is  the  instinct  most  active;  and  by 
the  incessant  hammering  and  sawing,  and  dressing  and  undress- 
ing dolls,  putting  of  things  together  and  taking  them  apart,  the 
child  not  only  trains  the  muscles  to  co-ordinate  action,  but 
accumulates  a  store  of  physical  conceptions  which  are  the  basis 
of  his  knowledge  of  the  material  world  through  life.  Object 
teaching  and  manual  training  wisely  extend  the  sphere  of  this 
order  of  acquisitions.  Clay,  wood,  metals,  and  the  various 
kinds  of  tools  are  made  to  contribute  to  the  store.  A  youth 
brought  up  with  a  sufficiently  broad  basis  of  this  kind  is  always 

1  Notes  on  the  Development  o)  a  Child,  p.  116.  (The  entire  volume  is  rich  in 
suggestions  concerning  the  early  activity  and  instinctive  constructiveness  of 
children.') 


160  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

at  home  in  the  world.  He  stands  within  the  pale.  He  is  ac- 
quainted with  Nature,  and  Nature  in  a  certain  sense  is  acquainted 
with  him.  Whereas  the  youth  brought  up  alone  at  home,  with 
no  acquaintance  with  anything  but  the  printed  page,  is  always 
afflicted  with  a  certain  remoteness  from  the  material  facts  of 
life,  and  a  correlative  insecurity  of  consciousness  which  makes  of 
him  a  kind  of  alien  on  the  earth  in  which  he  ought  to  feel  him- 
self perfectly  at  home.  .  .  .  Moreover,  .  .  .  how  important  for 
life, — for  the  moral  tone  of  life,  quite  apart  from  definite  practical 
pursuits, — is  this  sense  of  readiness  for  emergencies  which  a  man 
gains  through  early  familiarity  and  acquaintance  with  the  world 
of  material  things.  To  have  grown  up  on  a  farm,  to  have 
haunted  a  carpenter's  and  blacksmith's  shop,  to  have  handled 
horses  and  cows  and  boats  and  guns,  and  to  have  ideas  and 
abilities  connected  with  such  objects  are  an  inestimable  part  of 
youthful  acquisition.  After  adolescence  it  is  rare  to  be  able  to 
get  into  familiar  touch  with  any  of  these  primitive  things.  The 
instinctive  propensions  have  faded,  and  the  habits  are  hard  to 
acquire. 

"Accordingly,  one  of  the  best  fruits  of  the  'child-study'  move- 
ment has  been  to  reinstate  all  these  activities  to  their  proper 
place  in  a  sound  system  of  education.  Feed  the  growing  human 
being,  feed  him  with  the  sort  of  experience  for  which  from  year 
to  year  he  shows  a  natural  craving,  and  he  will  develop  in  adult 
life  a  sounder  sort  of  mental  tissue,  even  though  he  may  seem 
to  be  'wasting'  a  great  deal  of  his  growing  time,  in  the  eyes  of 
those  for  whom  the  only  channels  of  learning  are  books  and 
verbally  communicated  information."  1 

Play. — The  educative  value  of  the  play  instinct  has  been 
recognized  by  kindergartners  since  the  time  of  Froebel.  It  has 
recently  received  much  study  by  others,  and  undoubtedly  is  a 
means  of  intellectual  and  moral  discipline.  I  believe  that  both 
free  play  and  regulated  play  whose  ends  are  certain  discipline, 
are  valuable.  In  the  first  five  or  even  six  years  the  play  should 
be  almost  entirely  free  play,  without  adult  restrictions  imposed 

1  James,  Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology  and  Life's  Ideals,  p.   146. 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION   TO   EDUCATION   161 

upon  it.  In  the  first  place,  the  tonic  effects  of  play  upon  the 
nervous  system  are  of  great  moment.  When  mental  exercise  has 
been  engaged  in  which  absorbs  one  part  of  the  brain  only,  free 
play  causes  what  Warner  designates  as  "augmenting,  spreading 
movements  "  of  nervous  energy.  The  spontaneous  play  calls  into 
action  fresh  brain  areas  and  the  successive  discharges  from  one 
centre  to  other  centres  serve  to  reinforce  the  nerve  currents  as 
they  proceed  to  the  muscle  which  produces  visible  action.  A 
good  laugh,  which  usually  accompanies  free  play,  being  a 
series  of  acts  commencing  with  small  muscles  and  ending  with 
the  large  ones,  may  completely  change  the  previous  mode  of 
brain  action.1  To  remove  temporary  fatigue  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  substitute  for  the  good  old-fashioned  recess,  with  its 
laugh  and  shout  and  capering  wildly  about. 

Play,  then,  during  the  early  stage  of  childhood  before  the 
child  has  gained  control  over  the  accessory  muscles  should  be 
largely  spontaneous  and  unrestricted.  I  say  largely,  because 
even  then  something  may  be  done  to  regulate  and  direct  play 
which  does  not  involve  fine  co-ordinations.  The  kindergarten 
games  which  include  movements  involving  the  larger  muscles  of 
the  trunk,  those  controlling  the  head,  arms,  legs,  etc.,  may  be 
engaged  in  to  great  advantage.  These  should  have  in  view  the 
exercise  of  the  social  instincts.  Many  little  social  duties  and 
amenities  may  be  thoroughly  inculcated  in  children  through 
play  which  is  organized  and  directed  by  the  teacher.  My 
children  had  a  birthday  party  the  other  day.  The  whole  direc- 
tion of  the  affair  was  given  by  the  mother.  They  were  helped 
to  arrange  the  little  table,  were  assigned  places,  given  a  few 
directions,  and  through  imitation  of  others  they  carried  out  the 
rest  of  the  program.  Now  the  little  games  which  the  kinder- 
gartner  directs  (though  she  may  seem  to  be  asking  their  advice) 
are  of  immense  value  in  helping  children  through  imitation  and 
obedience  to  learn  the  fundamental  laws  of  society.  These  plays 
should  certainly  be  well  adapted  to  the  capacity  of  the  children, 
never  predominantly  inhibitive  or  restraining,  rather  the  re- 

1  See  Warner,  Mental  Faculty,  p.  116. 


162  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

verse.  But  enough  of  control  should  be  sought  to  lead  the  child 
to  form  habits  of  self-control.  It  must  be  done  by  easy  gradients. 
It  is  like  gradually  training  the  colt  by  accustoming  him  early 
to  the  halter,  to  being  led,  and  to  being  bridled,  so  that  when  his 
colt-hood  is  ready  for  the  harness  he  needs  no  "breaking." 
The  entirely  unrestrained  child  is  like  the  wild  horse;  subse- 
quently he  may  be  broken  but  is  never  safe.  A  violent  outbreak 
may  be  expected  at  the  least  unusual  occurrence.  It  has  been 
shown  by  several  writers  that  many  boys'  organizations  (base- 
ball teams,  etc.)  do  not  hang  together  well  but  go  to  pieces  on 
slight  provocations.  Bryan  concludes  from  this  that  therefore 
play  up  to  about  twelve  years  "should  be  unhampered,  spon- 
taneous and  careless  of  ends."  While  I  recognize  the  fact  that 
children  do  not  hold  together  in  "team  work"  of  themselves,  I 
should  be  inclined  to  attribute  it  to  the  very  fact  that  childhood 
cannot  produce  leadership.  In  Professor  Bryan's  own  words  in 
the  same  article:  "Unquestioned  obedience  to  rational,  intel- 
ligent authority  should  be  the  principle  in  the  management  of 
young  children,  and  freedom  from  this  principle  will  increase 
with  the  development  of  the  child."  l 

From  a  considerable  observation  of  kindergarten  games  and 
household  games  of  children,  I  am  led  to  believe  that  their  enjoy- 
ment is  in  no  wise  curtailed  by  wise  direction,  and  certainly  the 
educative  features  derived  are  much  superior  to  the  play  that  is 
entirely  "careless  of  ends."  The  child  in  his  spontaneous  play 
is  not  always  "careless  of  the  end."  My  little  girl  of  five  goes 
coasting,  and  of  her  own  free  will  and  with  no  instruction  save 
imitation  and  experience  has  learned  to  steer  the  sled  almost  as 
skilfully  as  an  adult.  Children  of  eight  or  ten  often  learn  to 
skate  beautifully,  learn  to  ride  bicycles  in  a  manner  that  puts  to 
blush  the  adult,  and  it  is  all  play  to  them.  Now  provided  they 
enter  into  organized  games  with  the  same  zest,  and  I  believe 
they  may,  why  is  it  not  as  much  play  when  directed  ?  It  should 
be  no  more  hurtful  to  the  child  to  cheerfully  obey  simple  direc- 
tions in  a  kindergarten  game  than  to  learn  "  pat-a-cake,"  to 

1  Fed.  Sent.,  vol.  VII,  p.  380. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  16.3 

learn  to  button  his  own  clothes  (which  my  children  have  begged 
to  do),  to  learn  to  hold  a  knife  and  fork  properly,  to  main- 
tain reasonable  silence  in  presence  of  company  and  at  the 
table,  etc. 

The  social  instinct  is  one  that  early  exhibits  itself.  The  babe 
of  a  few  weeks  old  shows  signs  of  lonesomeness  when  left  alone, 
especially  if  it  has  been  much  tended.  By  the  time  the  child  is 
five  or  six  months  old  absence  of  accustomed  members  of  the 
family,  especially  children,  causes  no  little  irritability.  Perhaps 
a  caution  may  be  thrown  out  against  over-stimulation  of  the 
immature  nerves  during  the  early  days  of  childhood.  If  al- 
lowed too  much  companionship,  although  he  enjoys  it,  the  child 
may  become  irritable  and  his  normal  growth  be  seriously  hin- 
dered. By  the  sixth  month  the  child  may  safely  watch  other 
children  at  play  for  some  hours  daily.  A  little  later  on  he  will 
take  a  hand  in  playing  with  objects  on  his  own  account.  The 
child  should  be  the  one  to  manifest  a  desire  to  play  with  things. 
This  is  first  exhibited  by  grasping  as  indicated  above.  Too 
often,  however,  things  are  forced  upon  him  by  nurses  who  seek 
to  keep  him  quiet  by  continually  increasing  the  stimuli.  The 
more  the  child  frets  the  harder  they  toss,  and  pat,  and  pinch, 
and  tickle,  and  talk,  and  sing.  What  the  babe  needs  under 
such  symptoms  is  something  that  will  act  as  a  sedative,  i.  e.,  to 
be  left  alone  and  to  have  quiet  around  him. 

The  social  instinct  furnishes  a  starting-point  for  the  complete 
training  of  the  individual  for  his  place  in  society.  The  laws  of 
the  socius  can  be  learned  only  by  being  in  social  organizations. 
A  child  isolated  from  the  world  grows  up  a  social  monster, 
because  of  the  abnormal  development  of  his  selfish  nature. 
Rousseau  taught  that  man  is  by  nature  a  pure  being  becoming 
corrupt  by  contact  with  artificial  society.  Therefore  he  isolates 
Emile  from  his  fellows  from  birth  to  manhood.  But  such  an 
individual  could  not  live  in  society  because  he  has  found  no 
place  in  it.  Law  and  order,  the  basis  of  our  social  fabric,  are 
meaningless  to  him.  Hence  the  child  must  learn  the  fun- 
damentals of  social  organizations  by  subjecting  himself  to  the 


164  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

restrictions  imposed  by  society  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
and  the  individuals  composing  the  whole. 

The  family  is  the  first  to  impose  restrictions  and  extend  privi- 
leges. Instinctively  the  child  learns  about  the  family  organiza- 
tion and  also  instinctively  imitates  their  reactions  toward  one 
another.  By  this  undesigned  process  the  child  unconsciously 
forms  numberless  habits,  which  will  be  priceless  to  him  through 
all  his  life.  He  learns,  or  should  learn,  how  to  treat  his  parents, 
brothers  and  sisters,  strangers,  how  to  behave  at  the  table,  not  to 
disturb  family  or  neighborhood  peace,  etc.  But  even  this  would 
leave  him  undisciplined  in  multiple  essentials  of  the  relation- 
ships imposed  by  society  at  large.  There  is  the  school  toward 
which  the  child  instinctively  yearns  to  go.  I  believe  all  children 
want  to  go  to  school  not  because  it  is  school,  but  because  many 
children  are  there.  Now,  too  early  formal  school  work  is 
injurious,  but  there  is  the  kindergarten  and  if  properly  conducted 
it  is  a  blessing  to  all  children.  There  the  children  can  assemble 
and  under  pure,  wholesome  influences,  through  exercises  ap- 
pealing to  the  instincts  of  sociability,  expression,  and  con- 
structiveness,  learn  through  play  some  of  the  most  valuable 
lessons  of  their  lives.  Children  of  the  most  disagreeably  selfish 
dispositions  may  there  with  little  or  no  coercion  develop  the 
control  and  proper  emotional  attitude  for  most  amiable  actions. 
Through  imitation  of  their  fellows,  they  learn  to  do  many  things 
which  could  not  be  beaten  into  them,  and  they  drop  many  habits 
which  could  never  have  been  beaten  out  of  them. 

Reign  of  Law  in  Psycho-Genesis. — The  great  contribution  of 
evolution  has  been  in  rendering  a  new  interpretation  of  the 
origin  of  present  modes  of  activity.  Instead  of  regarding  any 
action  as  causeless  or  as  supernatural,  it  finds  an  explanation  of 
the  present  in  the  records  of  the  past.  Dr.  Stanley  Hall  in 
particular  has  given  an  entirely  new  meaning  to  education. 
His  great  admonition  is  to  study  the  actual  child  of  to-day  if  we 
wish  to  develop  an  ideal  man  of  to-morrow;  and  if  we  would 
know  the  real  child  of  to-day,  we  must  not  only  view  him  as 
he  is,  but  we  must  know  him  historically.  The  paleo-psychic 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  165 

records  of  race  growth  must  be  searched  diligently  to  know  how 
the  child  of  to-day  came  to  be  what  he  is.  Then  only  are  we 
ready  to  plan  for  the  morrow.  Otherwise  our  blunderings  may 
cause  only  arrests,  retardations,  and  malformations. 

He  says: l  "Man  is  not  a  permanent  type  but  an  organism 
in  a  very  active  stage  of  evolution  toward  a  more  permanent 
form.  Our  consciousness  is  but  a  single  stage  and  one  type  of 
mind;  a  late,  partial,  and  perhaps  essentially  abnormal  and 
remedial  outcrop  of  the  great  underlying  life  of  man-soul. 
The  animal,  savage,  and  child  soul  can  never  be  studied  by 
introspection."  Dr.  Hall  has  emphasized  more  strikingly  than 
any  one  else  how  each  individual  comes  into  the  world  freighted 
with  all  the  influences  of  the  past.  Though  each  rational  being 
undergoes  great  modification,  yet  the  initiation  of  most  phenom- 
ena of  the  present  has  its  origin  in  the  remote  past  and  can 
only  be  understood  by  comprehending  that  past.  Evolutionary 
history  is  the  key  to  the  understanding  of  the  present  and  no 
great  progress  in  education  can  ever  be  effected  without  the 
prophecy  made  possible  by  revelation  of  what  and  how  the  pres- 
ent came  to  be.  He  further  writes:  "We  must  go  to  school 
to  the  folk-soul,  learn  of  criminals  and  defectives,  animals,  and 
in  some  sense  go  back  to  Aristotle  in  rebasing  psychology  on 
biology,  and  realize  that  we  know  the  soul  best  when  we  can  write 
its  history  in  the  world,  and  that  there  are  no  finalities  save 
formulas  of  development.  The  soul  is  thus  still  in  the  making, 
and  we  may  hope  for  an  indefinite  further  development.  .  .  . 
There  are  powers  in  the  soul  that  slumber  like  the  sleepers  in 
myth,  partially  aroused,  it  may  be,  in  great  personal  or  social 
crises,  but  some  time  to  be  awakened  to  dominance.  In  a  word, 
the  view  here  represents  a  nascent  tendency  and  is  in  striking 
contrast  to  all  those  systems  that  presume  to  have  attained  even 
an  approximate  finality."  In  his  classical  study  of  fears,2 
Dr.  Hall  also  wrote:  "We  must  assume  the  capacity  to  fear 
or  to  anticipate  pain,  and  to  associate  it  with  certain  objects 

1  Adolescence,  I,  vii. 

a  Am.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  vol.  VIII,  p.  245. 


i66  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

and  experiences,  as  an  inherited  Anlage,  often  of  a  far  higher 
antiquity  than  we  are  wont  to  suppose." 

In  this  way  he  has  sought  an  explanation  of  the  multitude  of 
activities  which  have  hitherto  been  merely  catalogued  and 
regarded  as  static  or  supernaturally  given.  In  his  psychology 
and  pedagogy  everything  has  a  natural  history.  Royce  has 
contributed  much  in  the  same  direction  in  his  Outlines  of 
Psychology,  in  which  he  explains  initiative,  docility,  will,  and 
conduct  as  the  resultant  of  complex  impulses  which  are  the  out- 
growths of  inherited  and  individual  experiences  that  become 
organized  into  latent  tendencies. 

The  Present  a  Reverberation  of  the  Past. — The  beginnings  of 
all  great  types  of  action  have  their  roots  far  back  in  the  past, 
that  is,  they  are  instinctive.  Even  conception,  judgment,  and 
reason — which  we  are  apt  to  regard  as  the  antipodes  of 
instinct — are  themselves  in  part  instinctive.  The  (more  effi 
cient  they  are,  the  greater  the  instinctive  capital  with  which 
they  start.  Royce  has  said  of  walking,  creeping,  etc.,  that 
their  mastery  was  "very  slowly  reached  as  the  result  of  a 
training  whose  details  were  nowhere  predetermined  by  hered- 
ity, while  on  the  other  hand,  every  step  of  the  process  was 
indeed  predetermined  by  hereditary  constitution  to  tend,  in  the 
normal  child,  tou>ard  a  result  that  would  give  it,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances of  its  individual  life,  the  powers  of  locomotion  suited 
to  a  human  being." 

In  a  similar  manner  Marshall  accounts  for  religion,  duty,  and 
conscience  upon  a  genetic  basis.  He  says:  "We  here  conceive 
of  conscience  as  the  protest  of  a  persistent  instinct  against  a  less 
persistent,  but  momentarily  more  powerful  one,  and  we  are 
led  to  the  belief  that  conscience  has  been  evolved  by  natural 
evolutionary  forces.  We  are  thus  led,  therefore,  to  look  upon 
conscience  as  being  in  general  the  surest  guide  we  have  to  mark 
the  way  in  which  we  should  direct  our  lives  if  we  would  act  in 
accord  with  what  we  call  the  law  of  development."  2 

1  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  304. 

2  Instinct  and  Reason,  p.  410. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  167 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  wrote: l  "But  mind  this:  the  more 
we  observe  and  study,  the  wider  the  range  of  the  automatic  and 
instinctive  principles  in  body,  mind,  and  morals,  and  the  nar- 
rower the  limits  of  the  self-determining  conscious  movement." 
Dr.  Hall  says:  "There  is  one  thing  in  nature,  and  one  alone, 
fit  to  inspire  all  true  men  and  women  with  more  awe  and  rever- 
ence than  Kant's  starry  heavens,  and  that  is  the  soul  and  the 
body  of  the  healthy  young  child.  Heredity  has  freighted  it  with 
all  the  accumulated  results  of  parental  well  and  ill-doing,  and 
filled  it  with  reverberations  from  a  past  more  vast  than  science 
can  explore;  and  on  its  right  development  depends  the  entire 
future  of  civilization  two  or  three  decades  hence.  Simple  as 
childhood  seems,  there  is  nothing  harder  to  know;  and  re- 
sponsive as  it  is  to  every  influence  about  it,  nothing  is  harder 
to  guide.  To  develop  childhood  to  virtue,  power,  and  due 
freedom  is  the  supreme  end  of  education,  to  which  everything 
else  must  be  subordinated  as  means.  Just  as  to  command 
inanimate  nature  we  must  constantly  study,  love,  and  obey 
her,  so  to  control  child-nature  we  must  first  and  perhaps  still 
more  piously  study,  love,  obey  it.  The  best  of  us  teachers 
have  far  more  to  learn  from  children  than  we  can  ever  hope 
to  teach  them;  and  what  we  succeed  in  teaching,  at  least 
beyond  the  merest  rudiments,  will  always  be  proportionate  to 
the  knowledge  we  have  the  wit  to  get  from  and  about  them."  2 

Nascent  Periods. — The  term  nascent  period  is  employed  in 
chemistry  to  designate  that  state  of  a  compound  in  which  it  is 
just  beginning  to  form.  It  has  already  come  into  use  in  biolog- 
ical interpretations  of  education  to  indicate  the  time  of  the 
budding  of  instincts.  The  instinct  begins  to  manifest  itself 
when  the  organism  is  mature  or  ripe  in  development.  Structure 
and  function  develop  together.  Consequently  whenever  a  new 
instinctive  tendency  appears  it  is  indicative  of  the  approaching 
maturity  of  the  correlative  structure.  Baldwin 3  has  called 

1  Autocrat  of  the  Break  jast  Table,  p.  TOO. 

1  North  American  Review,  Feb.,  1885,  p.  146. 

*  Mental  Development,  chap.  4. 


i68  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

attention  to  the  fact  that  the  instinct  for  vocal  speech  begins  to 
manifest  itself  synchronously  with  the  preferred  use  of  the  right 
hand.  Up  to  the  age  of  eight  or  nine  months  the  child  is  ambi- 
dextrous. During  the  same  period  no  attempt  has  been  made 
to  talk.  Since  they  arise  at  the  same  time  and  since  the  centres 
controlling  the  two  functions  are  so  closely  situated,  Baldwin 
regards  the  two  processes  as  functionally  related  and  as  having 
the  same  nascent  period.  My  own  experiments  with  children 
confirm  Baldwin's  conclusions. 

A  study  of  the  prominent  human  instincts  shows  that  there 
are  nascent  periods  in  the  development  of  each  of  them.  Fear 
is  not  displayed  at  birth,  but  develops  after  a  few  months. 
Walking  is  deferred  from  nine  to  twenty-four  months ; l  curiosity 
is  scarcely  worthy  the  name  for  some  years ;  the  collecting  instinct 
is  not  noticed  in  most  children  for  some  years;  the  sex  instinct, 
the  parental  instinct,  the  religious  instinct,  all  have  their  special 
budding  periods.  During  these  periods  the  golden  opportunity 
for  their  cultivation  is  presented. 

Nascent  Periods  in  Motor  Development. — Mosso  wrote:  "In 
man  the  brain  develops  later  than  in  all  other  animals,  because 
his  muscles  also  develop  later.  The  striped  muscles  are  more 
incomplete  at  birth  in  man  than  in  any  other  animal.  For  this 
fact  that  the  human  brain  develops  so  slowly,  I  am  able  to  dis- 
cover no  other  reason  than  this,  that  at  birth  the  organs  which 
effect  movement  over  which  the  brain  exercises  its  authority, 
are  not  yet  complete." 

He  says  further:  "If  we  wish  to  hasten  the  maturity  of  the 
brain,  we  must  decide  whether  the  formation  of  the  myelin  can 
better  be  hastened  by  stimulations  of  the  senses  and  intellectual 
work,  or  better  by  muscular  exercises.  The  latter  way  seems  to 
me  the  more  natural.  We  must,  therefore,  to  begin  with,  consoli- 

1  One  can  readily  detect  the  nascent  period  for  walking  by  supporting  the 
child  in  such  a  way  as  to  allow  the  feet  to  dangle  and  not  touch  the  floor.  If 
ready  to  walk  soon,  the  child's  legs  will  alternate  in  their  motions,  if  not  they  will 
swing  synchronously.  Many  think  it  is  the  practice  given  the  child  which 
enables  it  to  learn  locomotion.  James  says  some  blisters  on  the  feet  for  a  few 
weeks  would  demonstrate  that  the  child  would  walk  anyway. 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  169 

date  the  motor  nerve  paths  which  develop  first,  and  after  that 
seek  to  develop  the  portion  of  the  brain  concerned  with  intel- 
lectual work.  Modern  views  show  a  tendency  to  confirm  what 
the  great  philosophers  of  Greece  already  recognized,  viz.,  that 
children  ought  to  begin  to  read  and  write  only  with  the  tenth 
year.  The  conviction  is  again  slowly  maturing  that  our  chil- 
dren begin  to  learn  too  early,  that  it  is  injurious  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  brain  to  be  fettered  to  the  school-desk  when  only 
five  or  six  years  old.  The  conviction  is  slowly  making  its  way 
that  no  more  time  should  be  devoted  to  intellectual  work  than 
to  muscular  exercise.  The  modern  education  of  youth,  how- 
ever, resembles  more  an  artificial  hot-house  culture  than  a 
natural  training  of  the  human  plant."  l 

Similarly  we  may  regard  the  progress  of  development  of  all 
inherent  capacities  and  powers.  Even  those  more  indefinite 
powers,  like  power  of  mechanical  memory,  ability  to  learn  ab- 
stract arithmetic  and  grammar,  have  their  periods  of  budding 
vigor  when  their  cultivation  can  be  best  effected.  The  chapters 
on  motor  ability  and  on  the  development  from  fundamental  to 
accessory,  give  ample  evidence  that  the  child  of  five  has  very 
little  control  of  the  accessory  muscles.  Manual  dexterity  re- 
quiring fine  co-ordinations  should  not  be  attempted  in  childhood. 
Fine  writing  and  the  use  of  small  tools  should  be  deferred  until 
later.  The  nascent  period  for  the  acquisition  of  manual  skill 
is  early  youth.  The  maximum  dexterity  is  not  attained  then, 
but  the  cultivation  must  then  begin  if  the  fullest  fruitage  is  to 
ensue.  Many  superintendents  are  convinced  that  manual  train- 
ing in  its  complete  forms  should  be  begun  not  later  than  the 
grammar  grades.  Authorities  in  colleges  of  engineering  argue 
for  manual  training  in  the  secondary  schools  because  those  who 
defer  it  until  the  college  is  reached  fail  to  acquire  the  same 
degree  of  skill.  To  gain  great  skill  in  playing  the  piano  and 
other  musical  instruments,  it  is  well  understood  that  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  begin  in  early  life. 

1  Clark  University  Decennial  Celebration  Volume,  p.  383. 


1 7o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Nascent  Period  for  Language. — There  is  a  special  period  in  the 
life  of  the  child  when  his  capacity  and  interest  in  acquiring 
vocalized  speech  are  at  their  best.  The  child  gives  abundant 
evidence  of  this  period  by  his  constant  chatterings  and  his 
amazing  acquisitions.  In  a  few  months  he  acquires  a  vocab- 
ulary which  would  take  an  adult  as  many  years  to  acquire. 
This  period  is  at  its  best  from  about  one  and  a  half  years  to  ten 
or  twelve.  During  this  period  the  child  should  be  in  an  environ- 
ment where,  through  imitation,  he  can  absorb  without  difficulty 
all  the  knowledge  of  the  mother  tongue  that  he  will  ever  need 
for  practical  purposes.  An  ordinary  child  of  a  dozen  years  of 
age  who  has  been  reared  in  a  refined  home  where  correct  language 
is  spoken  and  who  has  had  ample  opportunity  to  talk  will  be 
able  without  schooling  to  use  his  mother  tongue  with  facility, 
force,  and  precision. 

During  the  same  nascent  language  period  there  is  a  golden 
opportunity  for  acquiring  the  ability  to  speak  foreign  languages. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  that  ordinary  children  can,  in  addi- 
tion to  their  native  tongue,  master  two  or  three  foreign  languages 
as  spoken  languages  by  the  time  they  are  ten  years  of  age.  This 
means  that  they  can  understand  readily  what  they  hear  and  can 
use  effectively  the  language  in  expressing  their  ideas  orally. 
We  have  wholesale  illustrations  of  the  fact  that  childhood  is  the 
nascent  period  for  acquiring  a  spoken  language.  Foreigners 
who  come  to  this  country  in  childhood  acquire  such  a  mastery 
of  the  language  in  a  few  months  that  they  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  the  native-born.  The  parents  of  the  same  children,  how- 
ever, seldom  acquire  the  language  so  as  to  use  it  with  any  great 
degree  of  precision  or  skill.  It  is  not  because  they  do  not  try, 
but  because  the  vocal  organs  and  the  centres  controlling  them 
have  passed  beyond  the  nascent  period  of  economical  functioning 
in  new  ways.  Children  who  have  acquired  these  accomplish- 
ments know  as  much  of  arithmetic,  geography,  and  of  other  usual 
school  subjects  as  do  the  children  who  have  not  acquired  the 
additional  languages.  The  children  suffer  no  impairment  of 
health  because  of  the  additional  acquisitions. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  171 

And  in  spite  of  such  ample  evidence  we  persist  in  America 
in  organizing  our  curricula  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  practically 
no  opportunity  to  learn  foreign  languages  until  too  late.  To  the 
objection  that  there  is  no  time,  it  should  be  said  that  there  is 
abundant  time  if  we  only  would  arrange  the  curriculum  so  as 
to  adapt  it  to  the  stages  of  development  of  the  unfolding  child. 
We  are  uneconomical  in  forcing  things  at  unseasonable  times. 
The  Germans  and  the  French  can  teach  us  how  to  arrange  our 
curriculum  so  as  not  to  waste  so  much  of  the  child's  time. 

"The  introduction  of  athletics  affords  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  decline  of  the  learning  power  with  the  progressing  years. 
When  golf  first  came  in  it  was  considered  an  excellent  game  for 
the  middle-aged;  and  you  have  all  watched  the  middle-aged 
man  play.  He  was  so  awkward,  he  could  not  do  it.  Day  after 
day  the  man  of  forty,  fifty,  or  even  older,  would  go  to  the  golf 
field,  hoping  each  time  to  acquire  a  sure  stroke,  but  never  really 
acquiring  it.  The  young  man  learned  better,  but  the  good  golf 
players  are  those  who  begin  as  children,  twelve  and  fourteen 
years  of  age,  and  in  a  few  months  become  as  expert  and  sure  as 
their  fathers  wished  to  become,  but  could  not.  In  bicycling  it 
was  the  same.  Eight  lessons  were  considered  the  number  neces- 
sary to  teach  the  intelligent  adult  to  ride  a  wheel.  Three  for  a 
child  of  eight.  And  an  indefinite  number  of  lessons,  ending  in 
failure,  for  a  person  of  seventy.  ...  As  in  every  study  of 
biological  facts,  there  is  in  the  study  of  senescent  mental  stability 
the  principle  of  variation  to  be  kept  in  mind.  Men  are  not  alike. 
The  great  majority  of  men  lose  the  power  of  learning,  doubtless 
some  more  and  some  less,  we  will  say,  at  twenty-five  years. 
Few  men  after  twenty-five  are  able  to  learn  much.  They  who 
cannot,  become  day-laborers,  mechanics,  clerks  of  a  mechanical 
order.  Others  probably  can  go  on  somewhat  longer,  and 
obtain  higher  positions;  and  there  are  men  who,  with  extreme 
variations  in  endowment,  preserve  the  power  of  active  and  origi- 
nal thought  far  on  into  life.  These  of  course  are  the  exceptional 
men,  the  great  men."  * 

1  Minot,  Age,  Growth,  and  Death,  pp.  243,  246. 


172  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Instincts  Antecedent  to  Great  Interests. — It  is  no  less  true  that 
there  are  nascent  periods  for  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  abstract 
grammar,  abstract  arithmetic,  philosophy,  science,  and  other 
subjects.  Every  great  interest  presupposes  a  corresponding 
innate  ability.  No  one  ever  developed  a  great  headway  of 
interest  in  anything  for  which  he  did  not  possess  some  real 
capacity.  The  boy  who  can  without  training  sprint  a  hundred 
yards  in  eleven  seconds  is  interested  in  reducing  his  time  to  ten 
seconds;  but  the  clumsy  fellow  who  requires  fifteen  or  more 
seconds  develops  no  special  interest  in  sprinting — that  is,  in 
sprinting  himself.  He  may  develop  the  gambler's  interest  in 
seeing  others  sprint.  Many  think  they  are  interested  in  foot- 
ball and  other  sports,  but  most  of  them  are  merely  interested 
in  being  amused,  not  in  participating.  Only  those  with  innate 
abilities  are  so  interested.  Similarly  with  music,  art,  mathe- 
matics, or  language.  The  interest  which  leads  people  to  be 
patient  workers  and  producers  in  any  of  these  lines  is  coupled 
writh  inherent  capacity  in  the  given  direction. 

On  the  extreme  importance  of  recognizing  nascent  periods  in 
education,  Dr.  Balliet  remarks:  " There  is  a  nascent  period  for 
each  physical  and  mental  power,  a  period  of  rapid  growth  when 
new  aptitudes  and  interests  are  developing.  It  is  our  dense 
ignorance  of  most  of  these  nascent  periods  that  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  us  as  yet  to  prepare  a  proper  course  of  study.  Hence 
our  courses  of  study  are  little  more  than  conscientious  guesses. 
When  we  shall  know  more  about  these  nascent  periods,  we  shall 
be  able  to  arrange  a  course  in  which  the  various  phases  of  every 
study  will  be  presented  at  the  proper  period  when  they  will 
appeal  most  strongly  to  the  child.  Such  a  course  of  study  must 
take  into  account  three  types  of  children  .  .  .  the  observer, 
the  thinker,  and  the  doer.  The  last  type  has  but  recently  been 
recognized  in  education." 

Many  Instincts  Transitory. — It  has  only  recently  become 
understood  that  instincts  are  not  functional  in  a  fixed  manner 
all  through  life.  Most  people,  for  example,  think  that  wild- 
ness,  methods  of  food-getting,  etc.,  are  given  once  for  all 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  173 

and  are  in  no  way  affected  by  individual  experience,  i,  e., 
education.  But  two  important  laws  should  be  remembered  in 
this  connection:  (i)  Many  instincts  develop  at  a  certain  age 
and  then  disappear;  (2)  Many  instincts,  if  unexercised  or  un- 
aided by  environment,  fail  entirely  to  develop,  or  remain  stunted 
and  dwarfed. 

Every  one  knows  that  playfulness  is  a  characteristic  of  the 
young  rather  than  of  the  adult.  That  the  adult  does  not  play 
is  not  a  matter  of  environment  or  circumstances,  but  a  result  of 
the  fading  of  the  instinctive  impulse  to  play.  Tadpoles  breathe 
by  means  of  gills  instead  of  lungs;  the  frog  naturally  adopts  a 
new  mode  of  existence  in  response  to  new  instincts  and  in  con- 
sequence of  the  passing  of  old  ones.  The  young  calf  instinc- 
tively follows,  but  in  time  the  tendency  fades.  The  young  child 
at  first  instinctively  gets  food  by  sucking,  but  later  the  impulse 
fades  and  is  replaced  by  a  no  less  instinctive  tendency  to  bite  and 
chew.  Allusion  was  earlier  made  to  the  instinctive  function  of 
swimming  movements,  and  the  transient  power  of  infants  to 
hang  by  their  hands.  In  fact,  numberless  rudimentary  instincts, 
like  vestigial  organs,  come  into  function,  survive  a  brief  time,  and 
then  either  partially  or  completely  atrophy.  In  a  sense  all  the 
organs  and  functions  of  infancy  are  rudimentary.  They  sub- 
serve a  purpose  for  a  given  stage  and  then  give  way  to  a  higher 
form. 

Atrophy  of  Unexercised  Instincts. — Spalding,  the  renowned 
observer  of  animal  habits,  tells  of  a  friend  of  his  who  "reared  a 
gosling  in  the  kitchen,  away  from  all  water.  When  this  bird 
was  some  months  old,  and  was  taken  to  a  pond,  it  not  only 
refused  to  go  into  the  water,  but  when  thrown  in  scrambled  out 
again,  as  a  hen  would  have  done.  Here  was  an  instinct  entirely 
suppressed."  *  All  dogs  have  an  instinct  to  bury  bones,  old 
shoes,  gloves,  and  other  articles.  It  was  doubtless  necessary  for 
their  ancestors  to  bury  food  for  self-preservation.  James  re- 
marks 2  that  dogs  brought  up  for  the  first  few  weeks  of  life  on  a 

1  Le\vcs,  Problems  of  L;/e  and  Mind,  vol.  I,  p.  22,  note. 
*  Principles  o)  Psychology,  vol.  II,  p.  399. 


174  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

hard  floor  where  there  is  no  possibility  of  really  burying  anything, 
will  nevertheless  obey  the  promptings  of  instinct  and  will  make 
an  attempt  to  bury  sundry  articles.  The  futile  attempts  are, 
however,  abandoned  after  a  time  and  are  not  repeated  all  through 
life.  The  lack  of  exercise  of  the  instinct  was  the  cause  of  its 
atrophy.  Spalding  and  James  both  record  that  calves  and 
chicks,  which  always  manifest  the  instinct  to  follow  the  mother, 
lose  this  impulse  in  a  few  days  if  put  under  different  environment 
which  develops  other  habits. 

Arrested  Development. — I  have  often  had  occasion  to  teach 
algebra  to  mature  persons  who  had  never  studied  the  subject 
previously.  I  have  also  taught  the  subject  to  boys  and  girls 
of  a  dozen  years  and  have  found  that  the  latter  grasp  the  subject 
much  more  easily  and  better  than  the  former.  The  minds  of  the 
adults  had  become  so  habituated  to  thinking  the  elementary 
processes  that  a  transition  to  higher  processes  was  rendered 
difficult.  While  we  should  fix,  in  the  form  of  habits,  all  activi- 
ties that  must  be  continually  repeated  in  the  same  way,  yet 
we  should  guard  against  too  definite  crystallization  of  thought 
processes.  Every  habit  tends  to  enslave  its  possessor.  Pupils 
and  parents  are  continually  making  a  mistake  in  requesting  that 
the  children  be  allowed  to  "go  over  subjects  again  so  as  to  get 
them  thoroughly."  If  it  is  found  inadvisable  because  of  im- 
maturity to  promote  children  who  have  made  a  reasonable 
passing  grade,  it  would  be  far  better  to  have  them  take  new 
matter  of  an  elementary  nature  rather  than  to  review  all  the 
old  material  in  exactly  the  same  fashion.  A  pupil  should  never 
be  kept  back  in  all  his  studies  because  of  failure  in  a  part  of 
them. 

Arrest  occurs  (a)  through  the  premature  or  excessive  exercise 
of  a  function  or  (b)  through  lack  of  exercise  during  the  nascent 
stage.  Not  only  do  physical  and  intellectual  arrests  occur,  but 
also  emotional,  volitional,  and  moral  arrest  may  as  easily  ensue 
through  the  same  causes.  Darwin  tells  us  with  great  sadness  in 
his  later  years  of  his  utter  inability  to  appreciate  music  and 
aesthetic  effects  in  general.  He  attributed  the  lack  to  atrophy, 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  175 

due  to  disuse.  His  extreme  devotion  to  an  intellectual  ideal  had 
left  no  room  for  aesthetic  culture.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  beautiful 
in  nature  and  art  has  not  been  considered  of  as  great  importance 
as  the  crassly  utilitarian.  A  survey  of  our  almost  parkless  cities, 
undecorated  or  fussy  architecture,  the  lack  of  beautiful  paintings, 
the  ugly  house  interiors,  the  bleak  farms  without  trees,  flowers, 
or  artificial  adornment,  all  attest  that  we  are  pursuing  methods 
which  tend  to  stifle  all  aesthetic  impulse.  The  lack  of  adorn- 
ment and  beautification  in  life,  however,  is  certainly  not  because 
of  total  degeneracy  in  aesthetic  life.  The  fact  that  even  the 
working  people  will  select  the  best  music  and  the  best  art  when 
free  to  them  is  evidence  enough  of  aesthetic  instincts  which  strug- 
gle for  assertion. 

The  will  may  suffer  arrest  in  a  great  variety  of  directions. 
The  child  who  is  always  pampered  and  never  required  to  exer- 
cise deliberation  or  put  forth  effort,  grows  up  with  undisciplined 
powers.  When  the  power  of  control  would  make  him  a  con- 
queror he  finds  himself  the  slave  of  appetite  and  passion,  and  the 
victim  of  chance  environment.  Every  drunkard  despises  him- 
self in  his  sane  moments  and  yearns  for  the  nobility  of  self- 
control,  but  the  flabby  will  cannot  withstand  the  tempter's 
voice.  Habits  of  virtue  and  righteousness  have  never  been 
established  and  all  the  wishes  and  yearnings  he  can  muster  are 
overpowered  by  the  habits  of  vacillation  or  of  absolute  unright- 
eousness. 

In  the  case  of  undesirable  instincts  it  is  well  to  know  when 
and  how  to  arrest  development.  Royce  has  very  aptly  said  that 
"childhood  is  a  great  region  of  life  for  the  sprouting  and  first 
springing  of  the  young  weeds  of  future  mental  disorder.  The 
full-grown  maladies  of  the  asylums  need  older  brains  to  live  in; 
but  child  psychology  is  often  full  of  elements  from  which  future 
troubles  may  come.  It  therefore  behooves  the  teacher  of  young 
children  to  be,  if  possible,  psychologist  enough  to  know,  and  by 
sight  too,  those  symptoms  of  instability  of  brain  which  are  so 
common  in  early  years."  l 

1  "Mental  Defect  and  Disorder,"  Ed.  Rev.,  15:  322. 


1 76  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Hall  wrote  that  systematic  gymnastic  exercises  applied  at  the 
right  time  may  produce  immediate  and  often  surprising  develop- 
ment of  lung  capacity.  The  same  attempts  with  boys  of  twelve 
utterly  fail  because  the  nascent  period  has  not  yet  come.  Don- 
aldson demonstrated  that  forcing  open  the  eyelid  of  a  young 
kitten  prematurely  and  stimulating  with  light  arrested  the  devel- 
opment of  medullation.1  He  also  wrote  of  arrested  development 
in  another  connection,  saying:  "  Development  and  the  changes 
involved  in  growing  old,  are  by  no  means  synonymous,  so  that 
although  in  those  animals  with  a  fixed  size  there  are  always  to 
be  found  undeveloped  cells,  yet  it  is  not  a  correct  inference  that 
these  cells  are  also  young  in  the  sense  that  they  might  still  com- 
plete their  development.  It  appears,  rather,  that  the  capacity 
for  undergoing  expansive  change  is  transient,  and  that  those 
cells  which  fail  to  react  during  the  proper  growing  period  of  an 
animal  have  lost  their  opportunity  forever."  2 

Mistaken  notions  concerning  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  and 
grammar  have  doubtless  been  responsible  for  a  multitude  of 
pedagogical  sins.  The  formalist  regards  the  course  of  study  as 
a  pedagogical  grindstone  upon  which  the  wits  of  the  child  are 
to  be  sharpened.  We  remember  in  this  connection  Robert 
Recorde's  arithmetic  book  called  The  Whetstone  of  Witte. 
Mathematics  is  said  to  develop  the  reasoning  powers  and  many 
have  believed  that  the  earlier  it  could  be  introduced  the  greater 
would  be  the  development.  Little  children  have  been  forced 
to  take  it  in  allopathic  doses  in  the  hope  of  prying  up  their 
reasoning  powers.  Abstractions  in  grammar  have  been  like- 
wise forced  upon  them.  Not  only  have  the  children  failed  to 
comprehend  the  abstractions,  but  their  reasoning  powers  have 
been  stunted  and  dwarfed  rather  than  developed.  The  forcing 
process  caused  arrest  of  development. 

Dr.  Harris,  former  Commissioner  of  Education,  was  the  first 
to  call  attention  in  a  striking  way  to  the  subject  of  arrested  de- 
velopment in  education  caused  through  overtraining.  He 
remarked  that  the  attempt  of  many  teachers,  in  their  very 

1  Hall,  Adolescence,  vol.  I,  p.  207.  2  Growth  o/  the  Brain,  p.  37- 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  177 

zeal  for  good  teaching,  "to  secure  what  is  called  thoroughness 
in  the  branches  taught  in  the  elementary  schools,  is  often  carried 
too  far;  in  fact,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  produce  arrested  develop- 
ment (a  sort  of  mental  paralysis)  in  the  mechanical  and  formal 
stages  of  growth.  The  mind  in  that  case  loses  its  appetite  for 
higher  methods  and  wider  generalizations.  The  law  of  apper- 
ception, we  are  told,  proves  that  the  temporary  methods  of  solv- 
ing problems  should  not  be  so  thoroughly  mastered  as  to  be  used 
involuntarily,  or  as  a  matter  of  unconscious  habit,  for  the  reason 
that  a  higher  and  more  adequate  method  will  then  be  found 
difficult  to  acquire.  The  more  thoroughly  a  method  is  learned 
the  more  it  becomes  a  part  of  the  mind,  and  the  greater  the 
repugnance  of  the  mind  toward  a  new  method.  For  this  reason 
parents  and  teachers  discourage  young  children  from  the  prac- 
tice of  counting  on  the  fingers,  believing  that  it  will  cause  much 
trouble  later  to  root  out  this  vicious  habit  and  replace  it  by 
purely  mental  processes.  Teachers  should  be  careful,  especially 
with  precocious  children,  not  to  continue  too  long  in  the  use  of  a 
process  that  is  becoming  mechanical;  for  it  is  already  growing 
into  a  second  nature,  and  becoming  a  part  of  the  unconscious 
apperceptive  process  by  which  the  mind  reacts  against  the 
environment,  recognizes  its  presence,  and  explains  it  to  itself. 
The  child  that  has  been  overtrained  in  arithmetic  reacts  apper- 
ceptively  against  his  environment  chiefly  by  noticing  iio  nu- 
merical relations — he  counts  and  adds;  his  other  apperceptive  re- 
actions being  feeble  he  neglects  qualities  and  causal  relations."1 
It  is  more  important  that  the  child  should  learn  to  curb  his 
temper,  control  his  fists  and  tongue  when  under  provocation, 
bear  defeat  and  pain  heroically,  move  his  muscles  economically 
and  gracefully,  stand  surprises  without  shock,  abstain  from  strong 
drink,  tobacco,  and  vicious  habits,  than  to  know  the  multiplica- 
tion table  or  grammar.  The  Scriptures  even  go  so  far  as  to 
assert  that  "He  that  ruleth  his  spirit  is  greater  than  he  that  tak- 
eth  a  city."  But  positive  control  is  a  much  higher  control  than 

1  Harris,  W.  T.,  "The  Study  of  Arrested  Development  in  Children  as  Pro- 
duced by  Injudicious  Methods,"  Education,  20:  453-456. 


1 78  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

negative.  The  child  who  goes  into  tantrums,  pampers  his  appe^ 
tites,  shirks  his  lessons,  escapes  all  physical  labor,  has  his  will 
hopelessly  arrested.  Habits  of  righteous  volition  must  be  in- 
grained early  or  the  man  is  doomed  to  go  through  life  a  nerveless 
sentimentalist.  No  one  ever  develops  athletic  prowess  after 
maturity,  nor  is  it  much  more  possible  to  develop  positive  moral 
virtues  unless  the  foundations  have  been  laid  in  childhood  and 
youth. 

Arrest  of  religious  development  may  occur  through  precocity 
induced  by  too  early  memoriter  learning  of  dogmatic  forms  and 
formulas.  The  acquisition  of  any  proverb  or  formula  not  under- 
stood may  bias  wrongly  one's  whole  course  of  life.  We  all 
know  how  the  unfortunate  knowledge  of  the  superstitions  con- 
cerning the  number  13,  Friday,  charms,  omens,  and  amulets 
torments  us  and  even  causes  us  to  act  upon  them  although 
against  our  best  judgment.  Similarly  antiquated  medical 
advice  which  we  learned  when  young,  and  which  is  sometimes 
absolutely  pernicious,  is  so  hard  to  abandon  that  we  heed  it  even 
at  our  peril.  In  the  same  way  dogmas  and  formulas  which 
really  possess  symbolical  or  metaphorical  meaning  are  accepted 
literally  and  in  their  distorted  misinterpretation  become  perma- 
nent mental  possessions.  Our  minds  become  so  indurated  with 
these  modes  of  functioning  that  higher  and  truer  development 
becomes  impossible.  The  child's  mind  perceives  things  literally 
and  in  the  concrete,  but  abstractions  in  science  and  morals, 
which  are  mumbled  and  misinterpreted,  become  a  menace  to 
higher  growth.  On  the  other  hand,  to  fail  to  give  the  child  the 
concrete  foundations  in  science,  conduct,  or  religion  means  that 
subsequent  comprehension  of  abstractions  is  forever  precluded. 
Many  a  man  who  might  have  become  a  scientist  by  learning  early 
the  concrete  facts  out  of  which  higher  concepts  could  be  evolved, 
has  never  glimpsed  scientific  realms  because  his  early  experiences 
have  contributed  no  background  of  apperceiving  masses.  Like- 
wise in  morals  and  religion,  lack  of  concrete  personal  experiences 
out  of  which  diviner  conceptions  could  evolve  has  doomed  many 
to  dwarfed  moral  and  religious  development. 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  179 

Summary  and  Conclusions. — The  study  of  instinct  reveals 
very  clearly  that  mankind  is  not  a  finished  product  but  that  the 
race  is  ever  in  the  making.  There  is  ceaseless  change.  There 
can  be  no  standstill.  The  change  may  be  either  upward  or 
downward,  progressive  or  degenerative.  The  same  forces  which 
produce  fuller,  more  abundant  racial  life,  if  perverted,  may 
cause  degradation  and  extinction.  The  effects  of  life  experi- 
ences— education — do  not  cease  with  the  individual.  All  pos- 
terity shares  in  the  heritage  received  by  the  individual  and  modi- 
fied by  his  life.  The  life  experiences  of  one  generation  become 
the  impulses  of  the  next  and  all  future  ones. 

Education  is  thus  magnified  in  importance.  The  full  realiza- 
tion of  its  meaning  should  lead  from  selfishness  to  the  highest 
altruism.  It  is  the  business  of  education  to  select  and  create 
for  perpetuity  those  instincts  which  will  contribute  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  highest  ideals  of  life.  Harmful  instincts  should  be 
allowed  to  atrophy  through  disuse  or  to  be  shunted  off  into  useful 
channels.  For  example,  many  tendencies  toward  vice,  immo- 
rality, and  crime  should  be  allowed  to  decay  by  accentuating 
good  impulses.  In  some  cases  they  must  even  be  considered  as 
diseases  and  therefore  combated.  All  organic  diseases,  mental 
defects,  and  moral  degeneracy  should  be  eliminated.  Purposive 
selection  should  be  employed  to  aid  chance  natural  selection. 
Purposive  selection  should  even  correct  natural  tendencies,  for 
heredity  preserves  defects  as  well  as  excellencies.  In  many 
cases  the  continuation  of  characters  represents  no  selective 
process.  Heredity  simply  continues  what  has  been  acquired  in 
previous  generations.  For  example,  ugliness  is  never  perpetu- 
ated through  selection,  but  heredity  nevertheless  causes  it  to 
persist  through  generation  after  generation  of  the  same 
family. 

One  great  problem  of  education  is  to  so  understand  instinct 
as  to  correlate  the  individual  with  his  environment  and  secure 
the  fullest  and  richest  measure  of  life.  Each  individual  should 
be  more  highly  developed  than  his  ancestors  and  should  have 
fewer  undesirable  tendencies.  Getting  rid  of  original  sin  means 


i8o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

eliminating  some  harmful  hereditary  traits,  abridging  others, 
and  shunting  others. 

Pessimists  often  raise  the  cry  that  no  race  progress  is  dis- 
cernible. They  argue  that  the  world  is  no  better  to-day  than 
four  thousand  years  ago,  that  no  one  possesses  a  higher  grade  of 
intellect  than  in  the  earliest  historic  times.  There  is  no  warrant 
for  such  pessimism.  There  were  giant  intellects  in  the  palmy 
days  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  in  the  time  of  the  Pharaohs,  but 
the  world  average  then  was  vastly  lower  than  now.  It  may 
even  be  seriously  doubted  whether  the  giants  of  old  would  be  so 
conspicuous  were  they  alive  to-day.  The  high  level  of  to-day 
might  make  them  sink  out  of  sight  by  comparison.  To-day 
there  are  thousands  planning  and  executing  enterprises  as  gigan- 
tic as  the  erection  of  the  pyramids  or  the  generalship  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War.  In  every  civilized  country  there  are  many 
writers,  statesmen,  kings  of  finance,  inventors,  scholars,  edu- 
cators, who  have  accomplished  as  great  things  as  are  recorded 
in  the  ann-als  of  ancient  Rome,  Greece,  Egypt,  or  Palestine. 
They  may  never  be  singled  out  because  the  same  degree  of  in- 
telligence is  so  common. 

That  new  instincts,  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral,  have  been 
developed,  and  are  being  developed,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
That  some  impulses  have  become  atrophied  and  are  dying  out 
there  is  equally  little  doubt.  The  uniform  attainments  in  poetry, 
music,  scholarship,  statesmanship,  and  commerce  are  greater 
than  ever  before,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  there  is 
a  close  relationship  between  attainments  and  ability.  Many 
troublesome  instincts  like  pugnacity,  selfishness,  and  sensuality 
are  becoming  subdued  and  controlled.  The  higher  instincts  of 
reason,  morality,  conscience,  altruism,  and  religion  have  become 
expanded  and  strengthened.  We  now  have  less  of  war,  carnage, 
gluttony,  and  lust,  and  more  of  refined  courage,  altruism,  and 
love,  than  ever  before  in  the  world's  history.  The  deeds  of  men 
as  recorded  in  the  annals  of  history,  sacred  and  profane,  make 
a  splendid  record  of  the  growth  of  the  higher  and  nobler  powers 
and  the  crushing  to  heel  of  the  baser  instincts.  The  very  fact 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION  181 

of  the  conservation  of  energy  teaches  that  forces  may  become 
cumulative  and  tendencies  or  impulses  to  action  be  created. 
The  facts  of  memory,  habit,  and  heredity  lead  to  the  same  in- 
evitable conclusion.  If  we  believe  in  evolution  and  the  develop- 
ment of  civilized  man  from  primitive  savagery,  we  cannot  escape 
it;  for  is  not  the  greatest  difference  between  savagery  and 
civilization  one  of  instincts? 

When  we  remember  that  interests  are  determined  largely  by 
instincts,  it  is  at  once  seen  that  a  knowledge  of  instinct  is  of  great 
importance  in  determining  courses  of  study.  In  the  light  of  a 
knowledge  of  instinct  the  course  of  study  is  adapted  to  the  capaci- 
ties of  individuals.  The  school  is  fitted  to  the  child  rather  than 
the  child  to  the  school.  The  intelligent  administration  of  the 
entire  elective  system  must  be  thoroughly  grounded  upon  a 
knowledge  of  the  fundamental  instinctive  powers  of  the  indi- 
vidual. There  have  been  altogether  too  many  misfits  in  the 
world  because  of  a  lack  of  recognition  of  innate  possibilities  and 
needs.  Education  is  not  only  to  minister  to  thoroughly  apparent 
needs  and  interests  of  the  individual,  but  one  of  its  most  im- 
portant functions  is  to  discover  interests  and  aptitudes. 

A  better  knowledge  of  nascent  periods  of  development  would 
effect  many  readjustments  in  the  position  of  different  subjects 
and  topics  in  the  curriculum.  Already  the  fruits  of  even  our 
limited  knowledge  of  the  subject  are  becoming  apparent.  The 
kindergarten  work  has  been  remodelled,  formal  arithmetic  work 
is  disappearing  from  the  primary  grades,  concrete  work  is  finding 
its  place  in  the  elementary  schools,  elementary  algebra  and  con- 
crete geometry  have  been  shifted  from  the  high  school  to  the 
grammar  school,  and  the  abstract  arithmetic  has  been  relegated 
to  the  high  school.  Formal  grammar  is  less  emphasized  in 
elementary  work,  and  ought  to  be  pushed  still  higher  up.  It  is 
being  recognized  in  practice  that  modern  foreign  languages  can 
be  most  advantageously  begun  between  seven  and  twelve. 
There  are  well-marked  stages  in  the  growth  of  interest  and  power 
in  drawing  which  should  serve  as  a  guide  in  arranging  drawing 
courses.  Already  the  ultra-logical  course  in  drawing  has  been 


i82  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

replaced  by  a  more  rational  psychological  arrangement  recog- 
nizing the  well-marked  stages  of  development.  The  organiza- 
tion of  manual  training  departments  and  schools  is  in  part  a 
tacit  recognition  on  the  part  of  educators  1  that  the  instincts  for 
motor  activity  and  of  constructiveness  are  the  most  valuable 
allies  in  the  training  of  childhood  and  youth,  and  must  be 
utilized  if  education  is  to  be  normal  and  balanced.  The  head, 
the  hand,  and  the  heart,  metaphorically  speaking,  all  have 
claims  asserting  themselves  which  must  be  recognized  if  we 
would  avoid  malformation.  As  a  final  illustration,  we  may  cite 
the  recent  recognition  of  the  peculiar  period  of  adolescence. 
The  main  value  of  the  recent  study  of  adolescence  has  been  in 
the  appreciation  that  there  is  a  special  time  of  budding  of  the 
most  powerful  instincts  of  the  human  race.  The  proper  ad- 
justment of  the  curriculum  and  the  better  recognition  of  nascent 
periods  of  development  would  guard  against  arrest  of  develop- 
ment, and  enable  educators  to  co-operate  with  nature  in  develop- 
ing children  normally  from  one  stage  to  another  and  into  the 
fullest  and  noblest  manhood  and  womanhood  made  possible 
through  the  heritage  bequeathed  to  each. 

1  The  people  see  in  them  doubtless  only  utilitarian  ends  and  support  them 
on  that  account. 


CHAPTER  IX 

NATURE  AND  NURTURE:  INHERITANCE  AND 
EDUCATION 

Meaning  and  Illustrations  of  Heredity. — It  is  a  law  of  nature 
that  the  descendants  of  individuals  tend  to  be  like  their  ancestors. 
Every  one  knows  that  children  are  apt  to  look  like  their  parents 
or  near  relatives,  to  have  similar  dispositions,  and  to  have  many 
characteristics  common  to  the  family  group.  This  law  of 
transmission  and  reproduction  of  ancestral  traits  in  descendants 
is  termed  heredity.  President  David  Starr  Jordan  says:1 
"  There  is  something  inherent  in  each  developing  animal  that 
gives  it  an  identity  of  its  own.  Although  in  its  young  stages  it 
may  be  indistinguishable  from  some  other  kind  of  animal  in 
similar  stages,  it  is  sure  to  come  out,  when  fully  developed,  an 
individual  of  the  same  kind  as  its  parents  were  or  are.  The 
young  fish  and  the  young  salamander  are  indistinguishably 
alike,  but  one  embryo  is  sure  to  develop  into  a  fish  and  the  other 
into  a  salamander.  This  certainty  of  an  embryo  to  become  an 
individual  of  a  certain  kind  is  called  the  law  of  heredity."  This 
is  the  great  conservative  force  in  nature.  Through  heredity 
evolution  is  also  made  possible,  since  variations  once  established 
tend  to  be  transmitted  to  posterity. 

Heredity  of  Physical  Structure. — Heredity  of  physical  struct- 
ure is  everywhere  apparent  among  human  beings.  It  may 
manifest  itself  in  stature,  weight,  length  of  limbs,  color  of  eyes 
or  hair,  facial  features,  expression,  etc.  Children  are  often  said 
to  be  exact  images  of  father,  mother,  or  grandparents.  Among 
animals  resemblances  of  young  to  parents  are  equally  striking. 
The  same  laws  are  observable  in  plants.  It  may  be  safely  pre- 

1  Animal  Life,  p.  88. 
'83 


184  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

dieted  that  a  grain  of  corn  or  any  other  plant  seed  will  produce 
under  ordinary  conditions  a  new  plant  of  the  same  kind  and 
of  similar  size,  form,  and  color  as  that  which  bore  the  seed. 
These  facts  are  all  too  obvious  to  need  more  than  suggestion. 
Internal  structures  as  well  as  external  are  governed  by  the  laws 
of  heredity.  The  various  proportions  of  the  cranium,  thorax, 
vertebrae,  teeth,  the  peculiarities  of  the  circulatory  system  and 
the  nervous  system,  which  are  manifest  in  a  given  individual  will 
probably  be  found  upon  investigation  to  be  characteristics 
common  to  his  ancestry  and  his  posterity.  Ribot  tells  us  that 
"There  are  some  families  in  which  the  heart  and  the  principal 
blood-vessels  are  naturally  very  large;  others  in  which  they  are 
comparatively  small;  and  others,  again,  which  present  identical 
faults  of  conformation."  The  nervous  system,  especially  the 
brain,  seems  to  follow  a  certain  type  in  a  given  family  or  "line 
of  ascent."  Length  of  natural  life  is  doubtless  an  ancestral 
bequest.  In  a  family  where  there  is  a  centenarian  there  is 
almost  sure  to  be  a  large  number  who  live  to  a  very  old  age, 
exceeding  their  allotted  "three  score  years  and  ten."  Ribot 
writes  that,  "longevity  depends  far  less  on  race,  climate,  pro- 
fession, mode  of  life  or  food,  than  on  hereditary  transmission."  l 

Thomson  says  that  "not  less  striking  than  the  long  persist- 
ence of  specific  and  stock  characters  is  the  fact  that  offspring 
frequently  reproduce  the  individual  peculiarities — both  normal 
and  abnormal— of  their  parents  or  ancestors.  A  slight  structural 
peculiarity,  such  as  a  lock  of  white  hair  or  an  extra  digit,  may 
persist  for  several  generations.  A  slight  functional  peculiarity, 
such  as  left-handedness,  has  been  recorded  for  at  least  four 
generations,  and  color-blindness  for  five."  2 

Hereditary  Disease  Tendencies. — While  specific  diseases  as 
such  are  probably  not  directly  heritable,  it  is  none  the  less  true 
that  tendencies  to  disease  are  very  definitely  inherited.  A 
disease,  according  to  Martius,  is  a  process  injurious  to  the  organ- 
ism. "The  process,"  says  Thomson,3  "is  not  transmitted,  but 

1  Ribot,  Heredity,  pp.  3  and  5. 

*  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  Heredity,  p.  70.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  265. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  185 

the  potentiality  of  it  is  involved  in  some  peculiarity  in  the 
organization  of  the  germ  plasm."  The  same  authority  writes 
that:  "There  are  endless  illustrations  of  the  fact  that  a  patho- 
logical diathesis — rheumatic,  gouty,  neurotic,  or  the  like — may 
persist  and  express  itself  similarly,  even  in  spite  of  altered  condi- 
tions of  life,  throughout  many  generations."  x  While  microbic 
diseases  are  not  directly  heritable,  it  should  not  be  supposed 
for  a  moment  that  children  of  parents  afflicted  with  such  diseases 
as  tuberculosis  are  no  more  liable  to  it  than  are  children  of 
parents  entirely  free  from  it.  In  a  strict  biological  sense  the 
disease  is  not  transmitted,  but  the  devitalized  constitution  giving 
a  predisposition  is  heritable.  Karl  Pearson  has  recently  made 
statistical  studies  on  the  subject,2  and  Woods  asserts  that  he 
"has  found  cogent  proof  in  the  first  of  these  studies  that  the 
phthisical  diathesis  is  just  as  hereditary  as  any  human  charac- 
teristic we  know  about."  3  Thomson  remarks  that  "the  fact 
that  tubercular  disease  may  be  a  shadow  over  a  family  history 
for  generations  is  doubtless  mainly  due  to  an  inheritance  of  what 
began  as  a  truly  germinal  or  blastogenic  variation,  which  is  only 
a  biological  way  of  expressing  what  the  physician  means  by  a 
'particular  predisposition,'  'a  tubercular  temperament,'  'a 
diathesis5  and  so  on."  4 

Good  and  poor  eyesight  are  family  characteristics.  Congenital 
blindness  sometimes  occurs  in  several  generations  of  the  same 
family.  In  one  family  thirty-seven  children  and  grandchildren 
became  blind  between  their  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  years. 
Of  another  family,  a  father  and  his  four  children  all  became 
blind  at  the  age  of  twenty-one.5  "Color-blindness,"  says 
Ribot,  "is  notoriously  hereditary.  The  distinguished  English 
chemist,  Dalton,  was  so  affected,  as  were  also  two  of  his  brothers. 
Sedgwick  discovered  that  color-blindness  occurs  oftener  in  men 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  70. 

2  Pearson,  A  First  Study  of  the  Statistics  of  Pulmonary  Tuberculosis  :  Dulau 
and  Co.,  London,   1907. 

8  Woods,  The  American  Naturalist,  42:    691. 

4  Op.  cit.,  p.  284. 

5  Sedgwick,  British  and  Foreign  Medical  and  Chirurgical  Review,  1861. 


186  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

than  in  women."  Darwin  wrote:1  "Myopia  is  said  to  be 
becoming  hereditary  among  certain  civilized  nations,  especially 
the  Germans."  Particular  types  of  hearing  are  doubtless 
hereditary.  Although  the  offspring  of  a  deaf-mute  and  a  person 
of  sound  hearing  are  seldom  deaf,  yet  where  both  parents  are 
mute  their  children  are  apt  to  be  deaf  or  to  be  afflicted  with  some 
kindred  disease.  In  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Institution  in'  London : 
"Among  148  pupils  in  the  institution  at  one  time,  there  was  one 
in  whose  family  were  5  deaf-mutes;  another  in  whose  family 
there  were  4.  In  the  families  of  n  of  the  pupils  there  were  3 
each;  and  in  the  families  of  19,  2  each."2  The  brothers  and 
sisters  of  the  deaf  are  deaf  in  245  cases  in  1,000.  The  child  of 
deaf  parents  is  259  times  as  likely  to  be  deaf  as  if  its  parents  were 
normal.3  "Out  of  901  admissions  to  an  asylum,  477  had  insane 
relatives;  out  of  321  cases  of  epilepsy,  105  had  a  family  taint 
(about  35  per  cent.);  out  of  208  cases  of  hysteria,  165  had  a 
family  taint  (about  80  per  cent.).  Various  specialists  on  mental 
disorders  have  found  reason  to  believe  in  hereditary  transmission 
in  from  25  to  85  per  cent,  of  their  patients,  the  diversity  being 
doubtless  in  part  due  to  the  great  variety  of  nervous  diseases."  4 
Again,  because  a  specific  disease  afflicting  a  parent  does  not 
reappear  in  the  children  the  belief  in  heredity  is  often  weakened. 
But  it  is  becoming  understood  that  the  specific  defects  are  not 
necessarily  those  of  the  ancestors,  but  rather  the  result  of 
weakened  or  abnormal  vitality.  There  are  many  diseases  which 
seem  to  be  closely  related  because  they  arise  under  similar  condi- 
tions of  weakened  vitality,  e.  g.,  tuberculosis,  scrofula,  and  many 
glandular  and  skin  diseases.  The  specific  disease  may  be  pul- 
monary consumption,  scrofulous  tumor,  or  cancer.  There  is 
a  whole  train  of  afflictions  akin  to  deaf-mutism.  Congenital 
deaf-mutes  are  usually  defective  in  mind  and  body.  Ordinary 
deaf-mutism  is  closely  allied  to  idiocy,  and  is  one  of  the  heredi- 
tary neuroses.  "In  the  family  of  the  deaf-mute,  inquiry  will 

:  Variation  of  Plants,  II,  p.  70.     See  also  August  Cohn,  Hygiene  des  Auges. 

3  Ribot,  Heredity,  p.  42. 

*  E.  A.  Fay,  Marriage  of  the  Deaf  in  America,  p.  49. 

4  Thomson,  Heredity,  p.  294. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  187 

frequently  discover  idiotic,  epileptic,  blind,  or  scrofulous  brothers 
and  sisters;  dipsomania,  insanity,  epilepsy,  phthisis,  or  imbecil- 
ity in  the  parents  or  earlier  ancestors,  and  like  conditions  in 
collateral  branches  of  the  family.  .  .  .  Occasionally  a  whole 
family  is  found  deaf  and  dumb."  l  Insanity  is  almost  insepara- 
bly connected  with  neurotic  degeneracy  and  according  to  Sachs,2 
"Heredity  is  the  potent  factor  in  the  causation  of  juvenile  and 
adult  insanity."  Thomson  says  that  a  specific  nervous  predis- 
position may  be  heritable  but  in  most  cases  it  is  "a  general 
predisposition  to  some  dislocation  or  derangement  of  the  ner- 
vous system."  Clouston  says:  "A  neurotic  heredity  is  seen  to 
resolve  itself  into  general  morbid  tendencies  rather  than  direct 
proclivities  to  special  diseases."  3 

Thus  we  see  that  specific  diseases  are  usually  the  manifesta- 
tion of  general  constitutional  degeneracy.  This  is  especially 
true  of  diseases  of  the  nervous  system.  Any  disease  affecting 
this  system  is  indicative  of  neurotic  conditions.  The  particular 
disease  may  vary  with  succeeding  generations.  In  one  it  may 
be  a  sensory  defect;  in  another,  epilepsy;  in  another,  tendency 
toward  bad  habits;  in  another,  malformation,  especially  of  the 
head  and  facial  features;  in  another,  speech  defects;  in  another, 
hypersensitivity.  So  long  as  the  predispositions  exist  the  dis- 
ease may  in  a  certain  sense  be  termed  hereditary.  Like  any 
memory,  its  identity  may  be  lost  in  the  complex  of  forces,  but  it 
just  as  truly  helps  to  determine  the  final  resultant. 

Life-insurance  companies  place  the  utmost  confidence  in 
heredity.  They  make  the  most  searching  inquiries  concerning 
the  health  of  ancestors  and  relatives.  Many  a  person  is  rejected 
solely  on  grounds  of  hereditary  taints,  even  though  he  may  be 
apparently  a  perfect  risk.  Insanity  and  suicidal  tendencies  are 
regarded  with  extreme  suspicion.  Diseases  frequently,  and  de- 
generacy always,  have  a  family  history.  In  discussing  the  ques- 
tion frequently  only  the  immediate  parents  are  considered,  when 

1  S.  A.  K.  Strahan,  Marriage  and  Disease,  p.  163. 

2  Nervous  Diseases  of  Children,  p.  610. 
*  Thomson,  op.  cit.,  pp.  280,  281,  294. 


i88  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

the  whole  complex  of  ancestral  bequests  must  be  taken  into 
account. 

Heredity  of  Mental  Characteristics :  General. — Darwin  wrote : 
"The  tenacity  of  instincts  is  so  great  and  their  hereditary  trans- 
mission so  certain,  that  sometimes  they  are  found  to  outlive  for 
centuries  the  conditions  of  life  to  which  they  are  adapted." 
'•\Ve  have  reason  to  believe,'  says  Ribot,  "that  aboriginal 
habits  are  long  retained  under  domestication.  Thus  with  the 
common  ass  we  see  signs  of  its  original  desert  life  in  its  strong 
dislike  to  cross  the  smallest  stream  of  water,  and  in  its  pleasure 
in  rolling  in  the  dust.  The  same  dislike  to  cross  a  stream  is 
common  to  the  camel,  which  has  been  domesticated  from  a  very 
early  period."  l 

Of  the  great  conserving  power  of  memory,  Ribot  writes: 
"We  daily  experience  thousands  of  perceptions,  but  none  of 
these,  however  vague  and  insignificant,  can  perish  utterly. 
After  thirty  years  some  effort— some  chance  occurrence,  some 
malady — may  bring  them  back;  it  may  even  be  without  recogni- 
tion. Every  experience  we  have  had  lies  dormant  within  us: 
the  human  soul  is  like  a  deep  and  sombre  lake,  of  which  light 
reveals  only  the  surface;  beneath,  there  lives  a  whole  world  of 
animals  and  plants,  which  a  storm  or  an  earthquake  may  sud- 
denly bring  to  light  before  the  astonished  consciousness. 

"Both  theory  and  fact,  then,  agree  in  showing  that  in  the 
moral,  no  less  than  in  the  physical  world,  nothing  is  lost.  An 
impression  made  on  the  nervous  system,  occasions  a  permanent 
change  in  the  cerebral  structure,  and  produces  a  like  effect 
in  the  mind — whatever  may  be  understood  by  that  term.  A 
nervous  impression  is  no  momentary  phenomenon  that  appears 
and  disappears,  but  rather  a  fact  which  leaves  behind  it  a  lasting 
result — something  added  to  previous  experience  and  attaching 
to  it  ever  afterward.  Not,  however,  that  the  perception  exists 
continuously  in  the  consciousness;  but  it  does  continue  to  exist 
in  the  mind  in  such  a  manner  that  it  may  be  recalled  to  the 
consciousness."  2 

1  Ribot,  Heredity,  p.  16.  2  Ribot,  Heredity,  p.  48. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  189 

Mosso  writes:  "Destiny  leads  each  one  of  us  with  a  fatal 
inheritance.  Though  we  were  abandoned  in  a  forest,  impris- 
oned in  the  dungeon  of  a  tower,  without  a  guide,  without  exam- 
ple, without  light,  there  would  yet  awake  in  us  like  a  mysterious 
dream,  the  experience  of  our  parents  and  our  earliest  ancestors. 
What  we  call  instinct  is  the  voice  of  past  generations  reverberat- 
ing like  a  distant  echo  in  the  cells  of  the  nervous  system.  We 
feel  the  breath,  the  advice,  the  experience  of  all  men,  from  those 
who  lived  on  acorns  and  struggled  with  the  wild  beasts,  dying 
naked  in  the  forest,  down  to  the  virtue  and  toil  of  our  father, 
to  the  fear  and  love  of  our  mother."  l 

We  are  somewhat  surprised  to  find  that  heredity  of  mental 
traits  has  been  recognized  only  a  short  time.  Sir  Francis  Galton 
said2  in  1865:  "The  human  mind  was  popularly  thought  to 
act  independently  of  natural  laws,  and  to  be  capable  of  al- 
most any  achievement,  if  compelled  to  exert  itself  by  a  will  that 
had  a  power  of  initiation.  Even  those  who  had  more  phil- 
osophical habits  of  thought  were  far  from  looking  upon  the 
mental  faculties  of  each  individual  as  being  limited  with  as 
much  strictness  as  those  of  his  body,  still  less  was  the  idea  of 
the  hereditary  transmission  of  ability  clearly  apprehended." 
Still  we  must  remember  that  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas 
as  held  by  the  Middle-Age  philosophers  held  sway  until  a 
very  recent  time.  In  fact,  it  is  a  half  belie!  of  the  popular 
mind  still. 

Heredity  of  Memory. — Ribot  makes  an  interesting  and  ex- 
haustive study  of  the  heredity  of  various  psychological  powers, 
including  memory,  imagination,  the  will,  instinct,  the  sentiments 
and  passions.  He  shows  that  memory  is  indeed  merely  a  dis- 
position of  nervous  tissue  on  the  one  hand  and  of  the  mind  on 
the  other  to  act  again  in  a  way  in  which  they  once  have  acted. 
Memory  is  a  dynamic  relation  existing  r.mong  various  elements. 
It  is  habit  in  the  making.  Consequently  there  are  various  types 
of  dynamic  possibilities.  A  given  type,  he  believes,  is  apt  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  various  members  of  a  family.  He  mentions 

1  Fear,  p.  63.  -Hereditary  Genius,  Preface. 


190  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

several  cases  to  support  his  view:  "The  two  Senecas  were 
famed  for  their  memory:  Marcus  Annaeus  could  repeat  two 
thousand  words  in  the  order  in  which  he  heard  them;  the  son, 
Lucius  Annaeus,  was  also,  though  less  highly,  gifted  in  this 
respect.  According  to  Galton,  in  the  family  of  Richard  Person, 
one  of  the  Englishmen  most  distinguished  as  a  Greek  scholar, 
this  faculty  was  so  extraordinary  as  to  become  proverbial — the 
Person  memory."  1 

Hereditary  Imagination. — Families  are  often  renowned  for 
their  special  types  of  imagination.  Among  painters  it  is  not  at 
all  uncommon  to  find  several  generations  of  especially  gifted 
artists.  In  the  family  of  Titian  were  nine  painters  of  great 
merit.  Cagliari  had  several  relatives  who  were  nearly  as  illus- 
trious as  himself.  A  catalogue  of  names  of  painters  who  have 
belonged  to  families  celebrated  for  their  artistic  genius  must 
contain  such  names  as  Rafael,  Van  Dyck,  Murillo,  and  Claude 
Lorrain.  Ribot  says:  "A  glance  at  any  history  of  painting, 
or  a  visit  to  a  few  museums,  will  show  that  families  of  painters 
are  not  rare.  In  England  you  have  the  Landseers;  in  France 
the  Bonheurs.  Every  one  has  heard  of  the  Bellinis,  Caraccios, 
Teniers,  Van  Ostades,  Mieris,  Van  der  Veldes.  In  a  list  of 
forty-two  painters — Italian,  Spanish,  and  Flemish — held  to  be 
of  the  highest  rank,  Galton  found  twenty-one  that  had  illustrious 
relatives."  2 

Another  type  of  imagination  which  can  be  easily  studied  for 
hereditary  tendencies  is  the  musical  type.  Sebastian  Bach  was 
the  greatest  of  an  extraordinarily  gifted  family  of  musicians. 
The  family  began  in  1550,  and  was  illustrious  through  at  least 
eight  generations.  Beginning  with  Weit  Bach,  the  Presburg 
baker,  we  have  a  record  of  an  "  unbroken  line  of  musicians  of  the 
same  name  that  for  nearly  two  centuries  overran  Thuringia, 
Saxony,  and  Franconia."  In  the  family  there  were  twenty-nine 
eminent  musicians.  The  names  of  Beethoven,  Mendelssohn, 
Mozart,  and  Haydn  all  represent  families  famed  for  their  mu- 
sical abilities. 

1  Heredity,  p.  53.  *  Heredity,  p.  60. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  191 

Science,  Literature,  Generalship. — Gallon  has  shown  us  that  it 
is  not  rare  to  find  many  members  of  the  same  family  eminent  in 
science.  Among  those  who  have  come  from  families  of  intel- 
lectual distinction  may  be  instanced  Plato,  Aristotle,  Francis 
Bacon,  Cuvier,  Darwin,  Franklin,  Galileo,  Herschel,  Humboldt, 
Leibnitz,  Mill,  Pliny,  Stephenson,  and  Watt.  Among  well- 
known  family  names  in  literature  the  following  are  splendid 
examples:  Addison,  Arnold,  Bronte,  Grotius,  Helvetius,  Les- 
sing,  Macaulay,  Schlegel,  Seneca,  de  Stael,  Swift,  and  Stowe. 
Galton  shows  that  the  great  commanders  in  history  have  all 
belonged  to  families  which  had  many  individuals  eminent  in 
some  direction  or  other.  From  among  the  most  striking  exam- 
ples the  following  may  be  selected:  Alexander,  Philip,  the 
Ptolemies,  Bonaparte,  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  Cromwell,  Gusta- 
vus  Adolphus,  Hannibal,  Wellington,  and  he  might  have  added 
Washington.  I  should  not  argue  that  particular  callings  are 
determined  by  heredity.  That  is  largely  a  matter  of  imitation 
or  chance.  But  the  high-grade  intellectual  ability  necessary  to 
these  callings  is  determined  by  heredity. 

Families  of  Statesmen. — In  studying  statesmen  as  a  class  to 
determine  whether  the  qualities  that  make  statesmen  are  hered- 
itary, Galton  believes  that  there  are  abundant  facts  to  prove  it. 
He  mentions  the  names  of  many  illustrious  statesmen  who  have 
belonged  to  families  in  which  many  members  have  achieved 
deservedly  high  reputations.  Among  these  are:  Pitt,  Erskine, 
Marlborough,  Brougham,  Walpole,  Romilly,  Palmerston,  Gren- 
ville,  Fox,  Wilberforce,  Cromwell,  Adams,  Mirabeau,  and 
Richelieu.  He  says:  "The  statesman's  type  of  ability  is 
largely  transmitted  or  inherited.  It  would  be  tedious  to  count 
the  instances  in  favor.  .  .  .  The  combination  of  high  intel- 
lectual gifts,  tact  in  dealing  with  men,  powrer  of  expression  in  de- 
bate, and  ability  to  endure  exceeding  hard  work,  is  hereditary." 

Families  of  Jurists. — Gallon's  study  of  eminent  English 
judges  included  so  large  a  number  of  fathers,  sons,  grand- 
fathers, and  grandsons  in  the  list  that  he  is  positive  in  his  con- 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  103. 


i92  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

elusions  that  judicial  qualities  are  special  and  transmitted  from 
generation  to  generation.  He  says  that:1  "Out  of  the  two 
hundred  and  eighty-six  judges,  more  than  one  in  every  nine  of 
them  have  been  either  father,  son  or  brother  to  another  judge, 
and  the  other  high  legal  relationships  have  been  more  numerous. 
There  cannot,  then,  remain  a  doubt  but  that  the  peculiar  type 
of  ability  that  is  necessary  to  a  judge  is  often  transmitted  by 
descent." 

Reasons  for  Exceptions. — Many  great  men  and  women  have 
not  had  illustrious  children;  in  fact,  a  very  large  number  have 
remained  unmarried,  choosing  rather  between  family  life  and  a 
great  work  of  which  the  world  seemed  to  stand  in  need.  Again, 
many  have  married  companions  inferior  in  capacity  and  have 
had  children  resembling  the  other  parent.  Then,  again,  through 
a  lawful  trick  which  heredity  frequently  plays,  the  children 
resemble  much  more  remote  ancestry  than  their  immediate 
parents.  Hence  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  an  illustrious 
father  does  not  always  have  children  who  come  to  distinction. 

History  of  the  Juke  Family. — In  1877,  R.  Dugdale  published 
in  the  thirtieth  annual  report  of  the  New  York  prison  com- 
mission, a  study  of  the  so-called  Juke  family.  Juke  is  a  name 
given  to  a  large  family  of  degenerates.  It  is  not  the  real  name 
of  the  family,  but  a  general  term  applied  to  forty-two  different 
families  whose  ancestry  could  be  traced  to  one  particular  man. 
The  father  of  the  Juke  family,  Dugdale  termed  Max.  He  was 
of  Dutch  stock,  born  about  1720.  He  was  shiftless,  played 
truant,  and  was  a  general  vagabond.  He  married  a  woman  as 
worthless  as  himself.  They  reared  a  family  of  vagabonds  and 
these  children  in  due  time  intermarried  with  other  vagabonds. 
By  1877,  in  five  generations,  there  were  540  direct  descendants 
and  about  700  of  more  distant  relation:  310  of  the  1,200  were 
professional  paupers,  7  were  murderers,  60  were  habitual  thieves, 
130  were  criminals  who  were  frequently  convicted  of  crime,  300 
died  in  infancy,  while  400  more  were  physically  degenerate. 
Only  20  of  the  1,200  learned  a  trade  and  10  of  those  learned  it 

1  Op.  cit..  p.  62. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  193 

in  a  state  prison.  They  had  cost  the  State  of  New  York  $1,000 
apiece,  including  all  men,  women,  and  children;  a  total  of 
$1,250,000. 

History  of  Jonathan  Edwards's  Family. — In  1898,  Dr.  A.  E. 
Winship,  who  had  made  a  study  of  the  Jukes,  determined  to 
make  a  study  of  some  desirable  family  to  offset  the  appalling 
record  of  the  Jukes.  He  selected  for  his  study  Jonathan 
Edwards,  who  was  born  October  5,  1703.  While  Max  Juke 
was  the  founder  of  a  family  of  1,200,  mostly  paupers  and 
criminals,  he  found  that  Jonathan  Edwards  was  the  founder  of 
a  family  of  1,400  of  the  world's  noblemen,  most  of  whom  have 
left  the  world  better  for  having  lived  in  it.  It  is  possible  here 
to  cite  only  a  few  of  the  illustrious  descendants  of  Jonathan 
Edwards.  In  Yale  alone  there  have  been  more  than  120 
graduates  who  were  direct  descendants;  among  these  are  nearly 
20  Dwights,  as  many  by  the  name  of  Edwards,  7  Woolseys,  8 
Porters,  5  Johnsons,  and  several  of  most  of  the  following  names: 
Chapin,  Winthrop,  Shoemaker,  Hoadley,  Lewis,  Mather, 
Reeve,  Rowland,  Carmalt,  Devereaux,  Weston,  Heermance, 
Whitney,  Blake,  Collier,  Scarborough,  Yardley,  Oilman,  Ray- 
mond, Wood,  Morgan,  Bacon,  Ward,  Foote,  Cornelius,  Shepard, 
Bristow,  Wickerham,  Doubleday,  Van  Valkenberg,  Robbins, 
Tyler,  Miller,  Lyman,  Pierpont.  Mr.  Churchill,  author  of 
RicJiard  Carvel,  is  a  recent  graduate.  In  Amherst  there  were 
at  one  time  of  this  family,  President  Gates  and  Professors 
Mather,  Tyler,  and  Todd.  There  is  not  a  leading  college  in  the 
country  in  which  their  names  are  not  to  be  found  recorded. 
They  have  not  only  furnished  thirteen  college  presidents  and  one 
hundred  or  more  professors,  but  they  have  founded  many  im- 
portant academies  and  seminaries  in  New  Haven  and  Brooklyn, 
all  through  the  New  England  States,  and  in  the  Middle,  Western, 
and  Southern  States.  Not  only  have  they  furnished  scholars, 
but  statesmen,  lawyers,  financiers,  and  other  men  and  women  of 
high  rank  in  practically  every  walk  of  life.  One  hundred  and 
thirty-five  books  of  merit  have  been  written  by  the  family, 
eighteen  journals  and  periodicals  of  large  importance  have  been 


i94  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

edited  by  them,  and  several  of  them  founded  by  members  of  the 
family.  Several  descendants  have  been  among  the  most  illus- 
trious men  of  their  time.  Examples  of  these  are,  President 
Timothy  Dwight,  President  Theodore  Dwight  Woolsey,  Dr. 
Theodore  W.  Dwight,  President  of  Columbia  College  Law 
School,  and  Daniel  Coit  Oilman.  The  only  notable  black  sheep 
in  the  flock  was  Aaron  Burr,  Edwards's  grandson,  and  there  is 
no  question  that  he  possessed  great  mental  acumen.  But  for  a 
single  unfortunate  characteristic  and  the  custom  of  the  time, 
which  allowed  this  trait  to  go  unchecked,  Burr  might  have  been 
one  of  the  great  instead  of  being  numbered  among  the  dis- 
honored. At  forty-nine  he  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant,  most 
admired,  and  most  beloved  men  in  the  United  States.  For 
thirty  years  his  career  had  few  American  parallels.1 

Environment  Insufficient  Explanation. — Perhaps  some  one 
may  contend  that  the  foregoing  shows  the  result  of  environment 
rather  than  hereditary  tendencies.  The  rejoinder  should  be 
made  that  the  environment  in  a  large  way  was  practically  the 
same  for  the  Juke  family  as  for  the  Edwards.  The  periods  are 
synchronous  and  there  was  no  great  difference  between  New 
York  and  Massachusetts.  It  could  have  been  no  chance  of 
environment  which  made  nearly  all  of  one  family  differ  from  all 
of  the  other.  If  environment  were  really  so  potent  as  many 
claim,  the  sameness  of  environment  should  have  brought  the  two 
families  as  a  whole  to  the  same  level. 

It  is  not  here  argued  that  environment  has  no  effect  in  deter- 
mining the  ultimate  development  of  individuals.  The  effects 
are  very  consequential.  One  who  disbelieved  in  them  should 
not  remain  in  the  ranks  of  educators.  But  there  are  very  defi- 
nite limits  beyond  which  the  effects  of  environment  exercise 
no  control.  No  amount  of  feeding  could  make  a  mastiff  of  a 
poodle.  No  amount  of  underfeeding  could  limit  the  growth 
of  the  mastiff  to  the  size  of  the  poodle.  Similarly  no  amount 

1  See  Jukes-Edwards:  A  Study  in  Education  and  Heredity.  Consult  alsc, 
Fisher,  Report  on  National  Vitality,  1909,  p.  53;  Woods,  F.  A.,  Mental  and 
Moral  Heredity,  1909;  "  The  Jukes,"  A  Study  in  Crime,  Pauperism,  Disease 
and  Heredity,  1877. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  195 

of  training  could  make  a  Shakespeare  of  an  idiot.  Shake- 
speare even  though  untrained  would  have  been  a  marked  man. 
We  must  keep  in  mind  a  distinction  between  great  mental 
power  and  reputation;  between  ability  and  success.  Obscurity 
is  not  a  necessary  correlate  of  weakness.  Many  intellectual 
giants  have  been  obscure.  A  distinction  must  also  be  made 
between  biological  and  social  heredity;  between  intellectual 
power  and  the  use  to  which  one  puts  this  power.  Biological 
heredity  determines  largely  what  mental  capacity  shall  be,  but 
social  heredity  and  environment  determine  largely  what  use 
shall  be  made  of  physical  and  intellectual  powers.  Morality  is 
much  more  influenced  by  environment  than  is  intellectual 
strength.  Whether  one  makes  locks  or  picks  them  is  much  in- 
fluenced by  one's  environment,  but  the  capacity  to  do  either  is  a 
matter  of  native  endowment. 

General  Mental  Endowments. — Although  "strength  of  mind" 
is  a  rather  general  quality,  yet  it  is  perhaps  a  better  basis  on 
which  to  judge  of  hereditary  tendencies  than  a  more  specific 
phase  of  mentality  like  memory,  imagination,  or  will.  It  is 
still  better  than  a  special  intellectual  power,  like  power  in  math- 
ematics or  literature.  As  is  the  case  with  instinct,  powers  are 
very  plastic  and  may  be  applied  in  a  variety  of  directions. 
Hence  a  study  of  the  genealogy  of  great  men,  regardless  of  the 
particular  direction  in  which  power  was  expressed,  ought  to  be 
considered  good  evidence.  The  avenue  of  expression  is  doubt- 
less to  a  considerable  degree  determined  by  environing  circum- 
stances. To  the  possible  objection  that  greatness  itself  might 
be  determined  by  environment  the  rejoinder  should  be  made 
that  while  environment  may  and  doubtless  does  prevent  many 
cases  of  greatness  from  ever  developing,  yet  environment  alone 
never  produced  a  genius.  In  fact,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
environment  does  much  for  the  genius  and  the  really  great  except 
to  provide  fortunate  encouragement  at  an  opportune  time. 
Something  more  than  mere  schooling  or  the  acquisition  of  in- 
herited social  forces  of  civilization  is  necessary  to  give  one 
genius  or  greatness.  That  something  must  be  an  inherited 


196  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

potentiality  which  gives  one  marked  individuality,  and  for  which 
neither  the  individual  nor  his  environment  is  responsible  or 
praiseworthy. 

After  many  years  of  investigation,  Pearson  in  his  "Huxley 
Lecture"  for  1903,  "On  the  Inheritance  of  the  Mental  and 
Moral  Characters  in  Man,  and  its  Comparison  with  the  Inheri- 
tance of  the  Physical  Characters,"  stated  that  "the  degree  of 
resemblance  of  the  physical  and  mental  characters  of  children  is 
one  and  the  same,"  or  in  other  words,  "we  inherit  our  parents' 
tempers,  our  parents'  conscientiousness,  shyness,  and  ability, 
as  we  inherit  their  stature,  forearm,  and  span."  l 

The  Cumulation  of  Effects. — Throughout  this  book  it  has 
been  maintained  that  all  experiences  leave  their  ineffaceable 
trace  and  that  the  effects  of  experience  are  cumulative.  They 
are  conserved  in  the  complex,  though  lost  as  identities.  In  this 
way  variations  arise  and  are  preserved  through  heredity.  The 
role  of  natural  selection  in  determining  what  shall  be  preserved 
is  duly  recognized.  But  natural  selection  is  not  the  origin  of 
variations.  As  Harris  says:  "Natural  selection  may  explain 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but  it  cannot  explain  the  arrival  of  the 
fittest."  2  It  is  merely  a  means  of  continuance  or  preservation 
of  them.  Something  more  fundamental  must  be  sought  as  the 
origin  of  variations.  It  has  been  assumed  throughout  the  dis- 
cussion that  the  living  organism  is  susceptible  of  influence  ex- 
erted by  environing  forces  or  by  exercise.  Both  the  physical 
and  the  mental  life  are  susceptible  of  thus  being  modified. 
These  modifications  are  conserved  and  become  an  integral, 
dynamic  part  of  the  resulting  complex.  And  because  of  the 
intimate  connection  existing  between  mind  and  body,  no  con- 
siderable change  in  either  one  but  has  some  influence  upon 
the  other. 

Heredity  or  the  conservator  of  racial  experience,  has  its  begin- 
nings in  memory  and  is  subject  to  all  the  laws  governing  mem- 

1  Journal  Anthropological  Institute,  32  :  179-237. 

a  Hugo  De  Vries,  Species  and  Varieties:  Their  Origin  by  Mutation,  1904,  p. 
825. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  197 

ory.  Evolution  is  dependent  not  alone  upon  the  transmission 
of  parental  characters,  but  also  upon  variations  from  the  type 
or  norm.  These  variations  are  also  dependent  upon  the  laws 
of  memory  for  their  appearance.  Environment  continually 
affords  a  variety  of  stimuli  to  act  upon  all  organisms.  They 
become  effective  because  of  the  plasticity  of  nervous  substance. 
These  effects  become  integrated  into  the  complex  organism, 
rendering  it  still  more  complex.  They  are  conserved  through 
the  processes  of  growth.  This  capacity  for  growth  and  develop- 
ment is  a  property  of  all  living  tissue  and  is  coextensive  with 
life  itself. 

In  the  preceding  we  have  the  explanation  of  the  basal  facts  of 
heredity  and  evolution.  The  entire  bridge  between  the  simplest 
animals  and  the  most  complex  has  been  built  up  in  this  way. 
The  entire  combination  of  dynamic  relations  existing  in  a  given 
organism  has  become  integrated  together  by  this  process.  As 
Orr  says:  "The  particular  form  of  potential  energy  which 
exists  in  a  chicken's  egg,  and  determines  into  what  it  shall 
develop,  did  not  exist  in  any  living  thing  during  the  paleozoic  era. 
It  must  have  been  acquired  by  the  action  of  environment  upon 
certain  organisms."  1  Again  he  writes:  "After  a  stimulus  has 
acted  upon  an  organism,  and  the  organism  has  returned  to  what 
is  called  its  normal  condition,  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  sec- 
ond normal  condition  is  the  same  as  the  condition  of  the  organism 
before  the  action  of  the  stimulus;  for  the  stimulus  has  caused  a 
molecular  change,  and  this  change  persists  until  some  other 
force  undoes  it  or  intensifies  it.  The  viscous  living  matter 
retains  its  impression,  and  is  more  impressionable  than  a  solid 
body,  of  which  Professor  Max\vell  has  said,  'that  the  stress  at 
any  given  instant  depends,  not  only  on  the  strain  at  that  instant, 
but  on  the  previous  history  of  the  body.'" 

Through  long-continued  repetitions  both  during  the  lifetime 
of  an  individual  and  during  successive  generations,  certain  proc- 
esses and  structures  become  permanent.  Each  factor  becomes 

1  A  Theory  of  Development  and  Heredity,  p.  Si. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  98. 


198  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

associated  with  a  multitude  of  other  factors.  Before  any  series 
of  similar  stimuli  can  produce  an  effect  which  would  stand  out 
as  a  new  individual  characteristic,  it  must  integrate  itself  into 
the  existing  complex  and  modify  the  entire  chain  of  associations. 
The  processes  of  growth  are  exceedingly  tenacious  in  perpetuat- 
ing any  well-established  chain  of  associations.  This  explains 
the  difficulty  of  producing  all  at  once  modifications  which  would 
affect  the  chain  of  associations  sufficiently  to  produce  and  perpet- 
uate a  strikingly  new  characteristic.  The  changes  go  on  so 
gradually  that  they  are  unnoticed  and  hence  it  is  often  asserted 
that  acquired  characteristics  are  not  transmitted.  They  are 
doubtless  just  as  certainly  transmitted  as  acquired.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  absolutely  new  and  noticeable  characteristics  are  not 
acquired  during  the  lifetime  of  the  individual.  Little  more  than 
was  potentially  present  at  birth  is  present  during  maturity. 
Some  fundamental  change  may  be  made,  but  it  is  too  slight  for 
detection.  Furthermore,  since  environment  is  the  most  simple 
and  least  intense  during  early  life,  i.  e.,  during  the  period  of 
plasticity,  fewer  modifications  are  effected  than  would  be  if 
early  life  were  subjected  to  more  impressive  environment. 
Little  real  modification  takes  place  after  maturity  is  reached. 

Transmission  of  Acquired  Modifications. — The  question 
whether  modifications  acquired  during  the  lifetime  of  an  indi- 
vidual may  be  transmitted  to  offspring  born  subsequent  to  the 
acquisition  of  the  modifications  has  been  the  subject  of  protracted 
discussion  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  Lamarck  had 
apparently  thoroughly  established  the  theory  that  acquired 
characters  are  transmitted,  when  Weismann  and  Gal  ton  each 
independently  came  to  conclusions  absolutely  at  variance  with 
it.  After  many  years  of  research,  Weismann,  in  1892,  expressed 
the  conviction  that  "all  permanent — i.  e.,  hereditary — variations 
of  the  body  proceed  from  primary  modifications  of  the  primary 
constituents  of  the  germ;  and  that  neither  injuries,  functional 
hypertrophy  and  atrophy,  structural  variations  due  to  the  effect 
of  temperature  or  nutrition,  nor  any  other  influence  of  environ- 
ment on  the  body,  can  be  communicated  to  the  germ  cells  and 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  199 

so  become  transmissible."  1  Again  he  says:  "We  have  been 
compelled — at  least  in  my  opinion — to  consider  that  only  those 
variations  which  are  ' blasto genie'  and  not  those  which  are  's0- 
matogenic,'  can  be  transmitted."  2  Weismann  thus  denies  the 
possibility  of  the  transmission  of  modifications  acquired  during 
the  lifetime  of  an  individual.  He  assumes  that  the  germ  cells 
contain  a  substance  called  germ-plasm,  out  of  which  the  new 
individual  is  derived,  one  portion  being  used  up  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  new  body  cells,  the  other  portion  passing  on  abso- 
lutely unchanged  and  forming  the  new  germ  plasm  of  the  germ 
cells  of  the  new  individual.  "The  new  germ  cells  arise,  as  far 
as  their  essential  and  characteristic  substance  is  concerned,  not 
at  all  out  of  the  body  of  the  individual,  but  direct  from  the  parent 
germ  cell."  3  According  to  his  theory  the  process  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  body  cells  from  a  part  of  the  unchanged  germ-plasm 
and  the  transmission  of  the  remainder  in  an  absolutely  un- 
changed condition  is  continued  from  generation  to  generation. 
Thus  the  germ-plasm  through  the  ages  remains  unchanged  for- 
ever. The  germ-plasm  is  thus  not  derived  from  the  body  cells 
nor  subject  to  modifications  produced  in  the  body.  "The  germ 
cells,"  says  Wallace,  "are  related  to  one  another  in  the  same 
way  as  are  a  series  of  generations  of  unicellular  organisms  de- 
rived from  one  another  by  a  continuous  course  of  simple  division. 
Thus  the  question  of  heredity  is  reduced  to  one  of  growth.  A 
minute  portion  of  the  very  same  germ-plasm  from  which  first 
the  germ-cell  and  then  the  whole  organism  of  the  parent  were 
developed,  becomes  the  starting-point  of  the  growth  of  the 
child."  « 

Weismann's  doctrine  has  made  many  converts,  because  the 
opposite  is  so  difficult  to  prove  objectively  and  because  certain 
facts  adduced  by  Weismann  seem  incontrovertible.  Weismann 
argues  that  mutilations  are  never  transmitted.  He  cites  the 
negative  experiments  in  cutting  off  the  tails  of  mice  through 

1  The  Germ  Plasm :  A  Theory  of  Heredity,  translated  by  Parker  and  Ronnfcldt, 
p.  395.  2  Ibid.,  p.  411. 

*  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  438.  4  Ibid.,  p.  438. 


200  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

nineteen  generations.1  The  case  is  not  a  fair  type,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  results  are  negative.  Any  critical  scientist 
would  have  been  able  to  predict  it. 

When  one  considers  the  fundamental  factors  in  heredity  and 
variation,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  mutilations  would  not  be  trans- 
mitted. The  associations  formed  in  the  processes  of  growth 
have  become  so  deep-seated  that  they  are  extremely  difficult  to 
change.  The  amputation  of  a  limb  or  a  tail  after  it  has  once 
grown  is  like  trying  to  omit  a  single  note  in  the  middle  of  a  scale 
that  has  been  so  long  practised  as  to  become  automatic.  The 
nervous  system  has  repeated  and  thoroughly  established  the 
nervous  co-ordinations  which  control  growth  in  that  direction. 
The  action  is  in  a  negative  direction,  and  according  to  the  laws 
of  habit  in  the  nervous  system  is  largely  ineffective.  To  change 
a  habit  positive  action  in  another  direction  must  take  place. 
Hence  this  one  link  in  the  chain  of  growth  forces  is  operative 
in  the  nervous  system  even  though  momentarily  disturbed  by 
amputating  the  organ.  The  experiments  performed  by  Brown- 
Sequard  in  producing  epileptic  guinea  pigs  by  section  of  certain 
nerves  are  much  more  to  the  point. 

Weismann's  doctrine  seems  untenable,  in  the  first  place,  be- 
cause no  part  of  a  living  organism  remains  absolutely  unchanged, 
even  through  the  life  of  that  individual.  Life  means  renewal  of 
tissues  disintegrated  through  life  processes.  As  soon  as  this 
cycle  of  events  ceases  death  ensues.  Thus  even  the  germ-plasm 
must  constantly  be  renewed  through  processes  of  nutrition  and 
growth.  Nutrition  is  received  through  the  medium  of  the 
bodily  cells  and  therefore  this  elaboration  of  nourishment  and 
its  conveyance  to  the  germ-plasm  make  the  condition  of  the 
germ-plasm  dependent  upon  the  conditions  of  the  body.  This 
breaks  down  the  theory  that  the  germ  cells  go  on  from  generation 
to  generation  absolutely  beyond  influences  that  may  affect  the 
body.  It  is  scarcely  thinkable  also  that  the  body  may  be  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  germ-plasm,  as  is  claimed,  and  still 
have  no  reciprocal  effect  upon  the  germ-plasm. 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  397. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE 


2CI 


Orr  writes:1  "Another  objection  to  this  theory  of  heredity- 
and  it  seems  to  me  insuperable — lies  in  the  supposition  that  the 
germ  plasm  may  exist  in  the  body,  undoubtedly  a  living  part  of 
it,  and  still  be  no  more  affected  by  the  changes  which  pass  over 
the  body,  than  if  it  were  enclosed  in  an  hermetically  sealed  vial. 
This  idea  seems  to  be  based  on  a  peculiar  assumption  in  regard 
to  the  individuality  of  a  cell,  as  though  the  neighboring  cells  of 
the  same  organism  were  as  distinct  from  each  other  physiologi- 
cally as  they  are  morphologically;  or  that  the  cell-walls  are  such 
firm  and  impermeable  barriers  that  the  molecular  condition  of 
one  cell  might  be  changed  without  affecting  its  neighbor." 

Eimer  takes  exactly  the  same  view.  He  says:2  "The  germ- 
plasm  cannot  possibly,  in  my  view,  remain  untouched  by  the 
influences  which  are  at  work  on  the  whole  organism  during  its 
life.  Such  an  immunity  would  be  a  physiological  miracle." 

A  theory  mediating  between  Lamarckianism  and  Weismann- 
ism,  enunciated  concurrently  by  Baldwin,  Lloyd  Morgan,  and 
Osborn,  is  that  of  organic  selection.  This  theory  maintains 
that  environment  and  use  modify  certain  characters.  They  are 
not  transmitted  as  an  inheritance  to  succeeding  generations. 
Through  germinal  union  and  other  causes  congenital  variations 
are  constantly  produced  in  a  variety  of  directions.  At  some 
time  variation  will  take  place  in  the  direction  which  environ- 
ment is  already  emphasizing.  Such  congenital  variations  would 
of  course  be  seized  upon  by  natural  selection  and  gradually  in- 
tensified. 

Baldwin  says3  that  "Acquired  characters,  or  modifications, 
or  individual  adaptations  .  .  .  while  not  directly  inherited,  are 
yet  influential  in  determining  the  course  of  evolution  indirectly. 
For  such  modifications  and  accommodations  keep  certain  ani- 
mals alive,  in  this  way  screen  the  variations  which  they  represent 
from  the  action  of  natural  selection,  and  so  allow  new  variations 
in  the  same  directions  to  arise  in  the  next  and  following  gen- 
erations; while  variations  in  other  directions  .  .  .  are  lost.': 

1  A  Theory  of  Development  and  Heredity,  p.  8. 

'Organic  Evolution,  p.  13.  3  Development  and  Evolution,  p.  138 


202  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

The  "acquired  characters,"  says  Conn,  "will  serve  to  preserve 
the  individual  in  the  new  conditions.  .  .  .  Each  generation 
acquires  these  characters  for  itself  so  long  as  the  conditions  re- 
main the  same.  But  the  new  characters,  even  though  not  con- 
genital, adapt  the  individual  to  its  new  conditions.  .  .  .  These 
individuals  are  therefore  able  to  contend  successfully  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  their  acquired  characters  being  just  as 
useful  to  them  as  they  would  have  been  if  congenital.  This  is 
repeated,  generation  after  generation,  similar  acquired  charac- 
ters being  redeveloped  by  each  generation.  ...  It  is  probable, 
indeed  certain,  that  after  a  time  some  congenital  variation  will 
appear  which  will  be  of  direct  use  to  the  animals  in  their  new 
habits.  .  .  .  But  when,  perhaps  after  hundreds  of  generations, 
there  does  appear  a  congenital  variation  which  aids  the  animal 
in  its  new  habit — an  old  habit  by  this  time — such  variations  will 
be  selected  and  become  a  part  of  the  inheritance  of  the  race."  l 
The  only  question  that  needs  to  be  raised  here  is  what  is  the 
cause  of  the  congenital  variations  ?  If  they  occur  synchronously 
with  the  characters  acquired  by  the  individual  through  habit 
necessitated  by  environment,  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  con- 
clusion. But  is  it  not  very  improbable  that  pure  chance  varia- 
tions should  ever  accord  with  the  acquired  characters?  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  real  reason  for  the  congenital  variation  is 
the  accumulation  of  dynamic  relations  produced  by  the  very 
environment  or  through  continued  use  in  a  given  direction.  The 
congenital  variation  has  not  come  by  chance  but  as  a  definite 
result  of  energy  applied  in  a  specific  direction  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce motion  in  that  direction.  The  growth  and  development 
is  a  resultant  of  many  forces.  The  doctrine  of  the  conservation 
of  energy  points  unequivocally  to  this  conclusion.  Dr.  G. 
Stanley  Hall  says:  "Unless  we  insist  upon  extreme  Weismann- 
ism,  as  few  biologists  now  do,  we  must  admit  that  the  child 
born  of  generations  of  cultured  ancestry  has  some  advantage, 
even  though  these  do  not  live  to  see  their  birth,  over  those  born 
of  the  lowest  classes,  postnatal  environment  and  nurture  being 

1  The  Method  of  Evolution,  p.  305. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  203 

the  same  in  the  two  cases.  If  this  be  so,  each  generation  ought 
to  add  a  little,  infinitesimal  though  it  be,  to  progress  in  that  most 
ancient  form  of  wealth  and  worth  which  birth  bestows.  If  the 
old  phrase  that  an  ounce  of  heredity  is  worth  a  ton  of  education 
have  any  truth  in  it,  rotation  of  classes,  while  it  may  have  many 
advantages,  is  thus  bought  at  a  very  dear  price."  1 

Romanes  wrote  very  definitely  on  this  point,  saying:  "Mr. 
Darwin's  theory  does  not,  as  many  suppose  that  it  does,  ascribe 
the  origin  and  development  of  all  instincts  to  natural  selection. 
This  theory  does,  indeed,  suppose  that  natural  selection  is  an 
important  factor  in  the  process;  but  it  neither  supposes  that  it 
is  the  only  factor,  nor  even  that,  in  the  case  of  numberless 
instincts,  it  has  had  anything  at  all  to  do  with  their  formation. 
Take,  for  example,  the  instinct  of  wildness,  or  of  hereditary  fear 
as  directed  toward  any  particular  enemy — say  man.  It  has  been 
the  experience  of  travellers,  who  have  first  visited  oceanic  islands 
without  human  inhabitants  and  previously  unvisited  by  man, 
that  the  animals  are  destitute  of  any  fear  of  man.  Under  such 
circumstances  the  birds  have  been  known  to  alight  on  the  heads 
and  shoulders  of  the  new-comers,  and  wolves  to  come  and  eat 
meat  held  in  one  hand  while  a  knife  was  held  ready  to  slay  them 
with  the  other.  But  this  primitive  fearlessness  of  man  gradually 
passes  into  an  hereditary  instinct  -of  wildness,  as  the  special  ex- 
periences of  man's  proclivities  accumulate;  and  as  this  instinct 
is  of  too  rapid  a  growth  to  admit  of  our  attributing  it  to  natural 
selection  (not  one  per  cent,  of  the  animals  having  been  destroyed 
before  the  instinct  is  developed)  we  can  only  attribute  its  growth 
to  the  effects  of  inherited  observation.  In  other  words,  just  as 
in  the  lifetime  of  the  individual,  adjustive  actions  which  were 
originally  intelligent,  may,  by  frequent  repetition  become  auto- 
matic, so,  in  the  lifetime  of  the  species,  actions  originally  intelli- 
gent may,  by  frequent  repetition  and  heredity,  so  unite  their 
efforts  on  the  nervous  system  that  the  latter  is  prepared,  even  be- 
fore individual  experience,  to  perform  adjustive  actions  mechani- 
cally which,  in  previous  generations,  were  performed  intelligently. 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  X,  p.  306. 


204  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

This  mode  of  origin  of  instincts  has  been  appropriately  called  the 
'lapsing  intelligence,'  and  it  was  fully  recognized  by  Mr.  Darwin 
as  a  factor  in  the  formation  of  instinct."  1 

Cope  in  discussing  the  gradual  evolution  of  new  forms  through 
progressive  increments  of  structure  says  that  either  these  changes 
are  inherited  or  each  generation  must  develop  the  structural 
changes  for  itself.  This  latter  view  he  believes  incorrect.  He 
says:2  "It  is  only  necessary  to  examine  the  embryonic  history 
of  animals  to  show  that  it  is  entirely  untenable.  For  if  some  or 
all  of  these  acquired  characters  can  be  found  present  in  the 
early  stages  of  growth,  as  in  the  egg,  the  pupa,  the  foetus,  etc., 
it  becomes  clear  that  such  acquired  characters  have  been  in- 
herited. That  such  is  the  fact  is  abundantly  demonstrated  by 
embryological  researches.  This  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  set  at 
rest  by  an  affirmative  answer  the  question  as  to  the  inheritance 
of  acquired  characters.  And  that  this  answer  applies  to  all  time 
and  to  all  evolution  is  made  evident  by  the  fact,  which  is  dis- 
closed by  paleontology,  that  all  characters  now  congenital  have 
been  at  some  period  or  another  acquired."  In  refutation  of  the 
stock  argument  that  mutilations  are  non-transmissible  he  writes 
cogently:  "Such  negative  evidence  only  demonstrates  that 
such  modifications  of  structure  may  not  be  inherited.  A  single 
undoubted  example  of  the  inheritance  of  a  mutilation  would 
prove  that  no  insurmountable  barrier  to  such  inheritance  exists. 
And  well-authenticated  examples  of  such  cases  are  known  and 
will  be  mentioned  later  on." 

Special  Evidences  of  Heritability  of  Acquired  Characters.— In 
support  of  his  contention,  Cope  brings  forward  three  lines  of 
evidence,  viz.:  (i)  From  embryology;  (2)  from  paleontology; 
(3)  from  the  breeding  of  animals.  Under  the  first  he  cites  the 
probable  fact  "that  the  segments  of  the  body  and  limbs  of  the 
Arthropoda  were  originally  produced  by  the  movements  of 
definite  tracts  on  each  other,  during  the  period  that  the  external 
surfaces  were  becoming  hardened  by  chitinous  or  calcareous 

1  Romanes's  Essays,  pp.  30-32. 

2  Primary  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution,  p.  401. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  205 

deposits.  It  is  well  known  that  this  segmentation  is  no  longer 
produced  by  this  mechanical  cause  during  the  adolescent  or 
any  other  post-embryonic  stage  of  the  life  of  the  individual,  but 
that  it  appears  during  the  various  stages  of  embryonic  life,  and  is 
therefore  inherited."  1  He  mentions  also  the  fact  that  during  a 
certain  stage  of  embryonic  development  of  the  rat  the  enamel- 
producing  layer  of  the  molar  teeth  undergoes  a  degeneration. 
The  ancestors  all  possessed  fully  enamelled  teeth  at  maturity, 
but  lost  the  enamel  through  the  abrasions  due  to  ordinary  use. 
This  has  reacted  upon  the  functional  activity  of  the  enamel- 
producing  structure  during  embryonic  life.  He  regards  this  as 
a  case  of  the  transmission  of  mutilations  incurred  in  the  ordi- 
nary struggle  for  existence.  Mutilations  suffered  in  this  way 
produce  vital  changes  in  metabolism  and  thus  tend  to  become 
so  permanently  fixed  as  to  be  transmitted. 

In  adducing  paleontological  evidence  he  demonstrates  the 
gradual  changes  which  occurred  in  the  shells  of  the  series  of 
the  nautiloid  Cephalopoda  during  the  successive  geologic  ages. 
In  concluding  his  extended  and  convincing  discussion  he  quotes 
Hyatt,  from  whom  the  particular  facts  are  mainly  secured: 
"These  cumulative  results  favor  the  theory  of  tachygenesis 
(acceleration)  and  diplogenesis,  and  are  opposed  to  the  Weis- 
mannian  hypothesis  of  the  subdivision  of  the  body  into  two 
essentially  distinct  kinds  of  plasm,  the  germ-plasm,  which  re- 
ceives and  transmits  acquired  characteristics,  and  the  somato- 
plasm,  which,  while  it  is  capable  of  acquiring  modifications, 
either  does  not  or  can  not  transmit  them  to  descendants." 

The  evidence  from  breeding  is  largely  drawn  from  the  authori- 
tative writings  of  Prof.  Wm.  H.  Brewer  of  Yale  University, 
long  president  of  the  Agricultural  Society  of  Connecticut. 
Modifications  are  due  to  several  different  causes,  such  as  (a) 
changes  in  nutrition,  (b)  exercise  or  disuse  of  function,  (c) 
disease,  (d)  mutilation  or  injuries,  (e)  regional  influences,  i.  e., 
change  in  locality.  Brewer  shows  that  breeders  increase  the 
size  of  a  breed  very  largely  by  feeding,  of  course  not  ignoring 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  404.  'Ibid.,  p.  422. 


206  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

selection.  But  no  successful  attempt  can  be  made  by  selection 
alone.  "All  the  best  breeders  recognize  the  rule  laid  down  by 
Darwin,  that  those  characters  are  transmitted  with  most  per- 
sistency which  have  been  handed  down  through  the  longest  line 
of  ancestry.  Breeders  do  not  believe  that  the  characters  ac- 
quired through  the  feeding  of  a  single  ancestor,  or  generation  of 
ancestors,  can  oppose  more  than  a  slight  resistance  to  that  force 
of  heredity  which  has  been  accumulated  through  many  preced- 
ing generations,  and  is  concentrated  from  many  lines  of  ancestry. 
Yet  the  belief  is  universal  that  the  acquired  character  due  to 
food  during  the  growing  period  has  some  force,  and  that  this 
force  is  cumulative  in  successive  generations.  All  the  observed 
facts  in  the  experience  with  herds  and  flocks  point  in  this 
direction." 

Brewer  shows  how  the  trotting-horse  has  been  gradually 
evolved  through  the  cumulative  results  of  heredity.  In  1818 
the  lowest  record  for  the  mile  was  3  minutes.  During  the  next 
six  years  this  record  was  reduced  to  2 134,  probably  largely  the 
result  of  training.  But  the  limits  that  could  be  attained  by  this 
means  had  been  practically  reached,  for  during  the  next  ten 
years  the  record  was  lowered  only  z\  seconds,  and  twenty-one 
years  more  elapsed  before  the  record  was  reduced  to  2 :3o.  By 
1858  a  2:30  class  was  established,  but  with  only  a  half-dozen 
horses  with  that  speed.  Brewer  says:  "Now  we  began  to  have 
distinctly  trotting  blood,  and  heredity  began  to  tell."  By 
1868  the  record  had  been  lowered  5  seconds  more,  and  there 
were  fully  150  in  the  2:30  class.  By  1888  there  were  3,255  in  the 
2:30  class,  and  the  record  was  reduced  4  seconds  more.  Now 
we  have  a  record  below  2:04,  and  probably  a  hundred  in  the 
2:10  list,  and  a  thousand  in  the  2:20  list.  The  evolution  of  the 
pacer  during  the  last  century  from  the  3-minute  class  to  the 
2-minute  class  has  been  equally  remarkable. 

Cope  cites  a  large  number  of  cases  reported  by  eminent  ob- 
servers of  the  transmission  of  mutilations.  He  cites  such  cases 
as  the  transmission  of  ophthalmia  in  a  horse,  the  loss  of  an  eye  in 
fowls,  a  split  pastern-joint  in  a  horse,  a  cat  with  a  deformed  tail, 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  207 

etc.  Deformed  fingers,  a  broken  knee-pan,  and  other  acciden- 
tally acquired  characters  are  reported  to  have  been  transmitted 
through  succeeding  generations  of  human  beings. 

Cope  says1  that  not  only  are  structural  characteristics  in- 
herited by  offspring,  "but  the  functionings  of  organs  which 
depend  on  minute  histological  peculiarities  are  inherited.  Such 
are  points  of  mental  and  muscular  idiosyncrasy;  of  weakness 
and  strength  of  all  or  any  of  the  viscera,  and  consequent  tenden- 
cies to  disease  or  vigor  of  special  organs.  Darwin  has  collected 
in  his  work,  The  Descent  of  Man,  numerous  instances  of  the 
inheritance  of  various  tricks  of  muscular  movements  of  the  face, 
hands,  and  other  parts  of  the  body." 

Shall  we  not  believe  with  Cope  and  Brewer  that  the  gradual 
change  in  the  texture  of  wool  of  sheep  taken  from  one  region  to 
another,  the  modification  of  the  hoofs  of  horses  taken  from  low- 
lands to  mountainous  regions,  the  gradual  acclimatization  of 
plants  taken  from  moist  to  desert  regions  or  from  higher  to 
lower  altitudes,  or  from  tropical  to  temperate  zones,  are  all 
examples  of  the  gradual  accumulations  of  tendencies  or  acquired 
characters  which  are  transmitted,  thus  changing  the  entire 
nature  of  the  breed  or  species  ? 

Eimer  states  his  views  definitely,  saying:2  "It  can,  I  believe, 
be  proved  as  a  fact  that  acquired  characters  are  inherited.  .  .  . 
Single  cases  of  the  inheritance  of  injuries  only  once  incurred 
seem  to  me  to  be  thoroughly  authenticated."  Rudimentary 
organs  in  his  judgment  are  proof  of  the  inheritance  of  modifi- 
cations produced  by  injuries.  He  maintains  that:  "All  the 
results  of  cultivation  which  man  successfully  produces  in  plants 
and  animals,  and  for  thousands  of  years  has  produced,  prove 
.  .  .  most  incontestably  the  fact  that  acquired  characters  are 
hereditary."  He  further  says:  "That  characters  acquired 
through  use  or  disuse  are  inherited,  and  must  therefore  aid  in  the 
formation  of  new  species,  can,  I  believe,  be  proved  more  easily 
than  any  other  proposition  I  am  maintaining.  If  I  were  to 
bring  together  all  the  facts  which  could  be  used  as  evidence  on 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  398.  2  Organic  Evolution,  pp.  13,  100,  154. 


208  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

this  point,  I  should  never  come  to  the  end  of  them,  for  I  should 
have  to  refer  to  all  the  facts  of  comparative  anatomy  and 
physiology.  But  I  intend  to  show  in  particular  that  use  and 
disuse  by  themselves  must  lead  to  the  formation  of  new  perma- 
nent characters,  without  the  aid  of  selection,  for  even  this  I  hold 
to  be  a  physiological  necessity." 

In  a  very  long  chapter  on  "Acquired  Characters,"  and  a  sub- 
sequent one  on  "  Degeneration,"  Eimer  sets  forth  at  great  length 
his  belief  in  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters.  He  cites  a 
great  many  examples  of  the  transmission  from  parent  to  child 
of  some  injury  or  modification  acquired  during  the  lifetime  of  the 
parent.  He  does  not  regard  these  specific  cases  as  necessary 
to  prove  his  position,  although  they  seem  to  be  convincing,  since 
the  whole  development  of  instincts,  varieties  and  species,  or  in 
fact  all  gradual  changes  of  structure  and  function  within  species, 
are  wholesale  illustrations  of  the  same  law.  He  argues  properly 
that  insanity,  idiocy,  mental  degeneracy,  the  extinction  of  fami- 
lies through  drunkenness  and  disease,  are  all  specific  evidences 
of  cumulative  effects  conserved  through  heredity. 

According  to  Darwin,  the  families  of  drunkards  become 
extinct  in  the  fourth  generation.  Marce  gives  the  following 
order  of  degeneration  in  such  cases:  First  generation:  Moral 
depravity,  excessive  indulgence  in  alcohol.  Second  generation: 
Drink  mania,  maniacal  attacks,  general  paralysis.  Third  gen- 
eration: Hypochondria,  melancholia,  taedium  vitae,  impulse  to 
suicide.  Fourth  generation:  Imbecility,  idiocy,  extinction  of 
the  family.1  Spencer  says  very  emphatically:  "Either  there 
has  been  inheritance  of  acquired  characters  or  there  has  been 
no  evolution."  Dr.  Cutter  says2  that:  "Not  only  the  natural 
constitution  of  the  parents  may  be  inherited,  but  their  acquired 
habits  of  life,  whether  virtuous  or  vicious.  .  .  .  Even  when  the 
identical  vice  does  not  appear,  there  is  a  morbid  organization  and 
a  tendency  to  some  vice  akin  to  it.  Not  only  is  the  evil  tendency 
transmitted,  but  what  was  the  simple  practice,  the  voluntarily 

1  Given  by  Eimcr,  op.  cit.,  p.  200. 
3  Comprehensive  Physiology,  p.  224. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  209 

adopted  and  cherished  vice,  of  the  parent,  becomes  the  passion, 
the  overpowering  impulse,  of  the  child.  A  person  is  thus  often 
handicapped  for  life  by  the  mistakes  and  faults  of  his  ancestors. 
.  .  .  Every  formation  of  body,  internal  and  external,  all  intel- 
lectual endowments  and  aptitudes,  and  all  moral  qualities,  arc 
or  may  be  transmissible  from  parent  to  child.  If  one  generation 
is  missed,  the  qualities  may  appear  in  the  next  generation 
(atavism).  A  guilty  secret  may  thus  reveal  itself  long  after  the 
active  participators  in  it  have  passed  from  this  life." 

W.  T.  Harris  writes:1  "The  mole  hunts  earthworms  and 
proceeds  by  minute  steps  of  conceiving  a  purpose,  and  of 
realizing  this  purpose,  until  it  produces  an  hereditary  change  in 
its  physique.  The  disuse  of  organs  causes  their  diminution  in 
the  individual  in  the  course  of  its  own  life,  and  after  several 
generations  the  effect  becomes  visible  as  an  inheritance,  as  a 
diminution  or  utter  extinction  of  eyesight." 

Darwin  is  frequently  cited  as  one  of  the  great  opponents  of 
the  theory  of  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters.  It  is 
true  that  selection,  natural  and  artificial,  was  the  great  principle 
which  he  invoked  to  explain  the  origin  of  species,  but  it  is  en- 
tirely erroneous  to  believe  that  he  regarded  that  as  the  sole  cause. 
He  distinctly  says:2  "I  am  convinced  that  natural  selection  has 
been  the  most  important,  but  not  the  exclusive,  means  of 
modification."  Although  Darwin  did  not  stress  the  idea  of  the 
transmission  of  acquired  characters,  yet  it  seems  clear  that  he 
recognized  it  and  he  undoubtedly  collected  the  largest  array  of 
evidence  ever  gathered  which  supports  this  view.  His  discus- 
sions of  the  variation  of  plants  and  animals  under  domestication 
and  other  forms  of  changed  environment,  the  effects  of  use  and 
disuse,  laws  of  variation,  the  origin  of  species,  the  origin  and 
development  of  instincts,  all  point  unequivocally  in  the  same 
direction.  A  few  quotations  will  be  adduced  to  corroborate  this 
interpretation  of  his  views.  In  his  section  on  the  effects  of  habit 
and  of  the  use  or  disuse  of  parts  he  writes:  "  Changed  habits  pro- 

1  Preface  to  Judd's  Genetic  Psychology  for  Teachers,  p.  7. 

2  Origin  of  Species,  p.  5. 


210  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

duce  an  inherited  effect  as  in  the  period  of  the  flowering  of  plants 
when  transported  from  one  climate  to  another.  With  animals 
the  increased  use  or  disuse  of  parts  has  a  more  marked  influence; 
thus  I  find  in  the  domestic  duck  that  the  bones  of  the  wing  weigh 
less  and  the  bones  of  the  leg  more,  in  proportion  to  the  whole 
skeleton,  than  do  the  same  bones  in  the  wild  duck;  and  this 
change  may  be  safely  attributed  to  the  domestic  duck  flying 
much  less,  and  walking  more,  than  its  wild  parents.  .  .  .  Not 
one  of  our  domestic  animals  can  be  named  which  has  not  in  some 
country  drooping  ears;  and  the  view  which  has  been  suggested 
that  the  drooping  is  due  to  disuse  of  the  muscles  of  the  ear,  from 
the  animals  being  seldom  much  alarmed,  seems  probable."  1 

In  discussing  the  laws  of  variation  he  says:2  "It  is  very 
difficult  to  decide  how  far  changed  conditions,  such  as  of  climate, 
food,  etc.,  have  acted  in  a  definite  manner.  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that  in  the  course  of  time  the  effects  have  been  greater 
than  can  be  proved  by  clear  evidence."  It  is  just  this  gradual 
accumulation  which  many  now  feel  bold  enough  to  consider 
as  the  great  source  of  visible  modifications.  "From  the  facts 
alluded  to  in  the  first  chapter,  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  use  in  our  domestic  animals  has  strengthened  and  enlarged 
certain  parts,  and  disuse  diminished  them;  and  that  such 
modifications  are  inherited.  .  .  .  The  evidence  that  accidental 
mutilations  can  be  inherited  is  at  present  not  decisive;  but  the 
remarkable  cases  observed  by  Brown-Sequard  in  guinea  pigs, 
of  the  inherited  effects  of  operations,  should  make  us  cautious  in 
denying  this  tendency.  .  .  .  The  eyes  of  moles  and  of  some  bur- 
rowing rodents  are  rudimentary  in  size,  and  in  some  cases  are 
quite  covered  by  skin  and  fur.  This  state  of  the  eyes  is  probably 
due  to  gradual  reduction  from  disuse,  but  aided  perhaps  by 
natural  selection.  ...  In  some  of  the  crabs  the  foot-stalk  for 
the  eyes  remains,  though  the  eye  is  gone;  the  stand  for  the  tele- 
scope is  there,  though  the  telescope  with  its  glasses  has  been  lost. 
As  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  eyes,  though  useless,  could  be  in 
any  way  injurious  to  animals  living  in  darkness,  their  loss  may  be 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  10.  2  Ibid.,  p.  127. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  211 

attributed  to  disuse."  His  discussion  of  the  origin  of  instincts 
corroborates  the  same  theory.  He  says:1  "If  we  suppose 
any  habitual  action  to  become  inherited — and  it  can  be  shown 
that  this  does  sometimes  happen — then  the  resemblance  between 
what  originally  was  a  habit  and  an  instinct  becomes  so  close  as 
not  to  be  distinguished.  ...  As  modifications  of  corporeal 
structure  arise  from,  and  are  increased  by,  use  or  habit,  and  are 
diminished  or  lost  by  disuse,  so  I  doubt  not  it  has  been  with 
instincts."  Especially  good  illustrations  of  instincts  acquired 
by  use  or  lost  through  disuse  are  those  which  have  appeared 
or  have  been  modified  by  the  domestication  of  animals.  Darwin 
devotes  an  entire  section  to  cases  of  "  inherited  changes  of  habit 
in  domesticated  animals."  2 

The  Fundamental  Difference  Between  the  Theories. — Un- 
doubtedly much  of  the  difference  between  the  Weismannians  and 
the  opponents  of  the  theory  is  due  to  the  difference  in  meaning 
of  the  term  "acquired  character."  Brooks,  in  his  Foundations 
of  Zoology,  says  that  he  never  uses  the  phrase  "inheritance  of 
acquired  characters"  except  under  protest.  He  says:  "If  any 
assert  that  the  dog  inherits  anything  which  his  ancestors  did  not 
acquire,  their  words  seem  meaningless;  for,  as  we  use  words, 
everything  which  has  not  existed  from  the  beginning  must  have 
been  acquired — although  one  may  admit  this  without  admitting 
that  the  nature  of  the  dog  is,  wholly  or  to  any  practical  degree, 
the  inherited  effect  of  the  environment  of  his  ancestors." 

We  should  agree  with  the  Weismannians  that  a  sharp  distinc- 
tion should  be  made  between  inborn  changes,  those  which  they 
insist  are  germinal  variations,  and  those  called  bodily  modifica- 
tions. Undoubtedly  no  modifications  except  germinal  modifica- 
tions can  be  transmitted.  But  may  not  acquired  bodily  modifi- 
cations produce  germinal  modifications?  In  fact,  it  hardly 
seems  thinkable  that  normal  modifications  of  the  germ  can  be 
produced  in  any  other  way  than  through  the  medium  of  the 
blood,  i.  e.,  the  body.  It  seems  unscientific  to  speak  of  germinal 
modifications  occurring  without  cause.  "Sports"  and  "chance 

1  Origin  of  Species,  p.  243.  '  Ibid.,  p.  247. 


212  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

variations"  should  not  be  considered  as  scientific  categories. 
A  functional  or  dynamic  relation  rather  than  a  mechanical  sub- 
stance relation  undoubtedly  obtains  between  the  germ  and  the 
developed  individual.  Then  why  is  it  not  possible  to  have  the 
bodily  character  exert  a  profound  dynamic  influence  upon  the 
germ-plasm  without  the  intervention  of  gemmules,  ids,  or  de- 
terminants as  the  bearers  of  heredity?  The  "arrival  of  the 
fittest"  can  then  be  explained  on  the  assumption  of  dynamic 
forces  which  become  sufficiently  cumulative  to  cause  the  germ 
to  function  in  new  ways.  It  is,  of  course,  recognized  that  the 
union  of  two  germ-cells  may  produce  a  new  individual  differing 
from  either,  but  this  could  not  account  for  their  producing 
modifications  just  like  the  particular  acquired  modifications  of 
the  bearer  of  either  of  the  cells. 

Weismann  may  be  correct,  but  his  theories  at  least  are  not 
proven  and  rest  upon  purely  imaginative  interpretations  without 
experimental  evidence.  Morgan  says  apropos  of  this  point  of 
view:  "Weismann  has  piled  up  one  hypothesis  on  another  as 
though  he  could  save  the  integrity  of  the  theory  of  natural  selec- 
tion by  adding  new  speculative  matter  to  it.  The  most  un- 
fortunate feature  is  that  the  new  speculation  is  skilfully  removed 
from  the  field  of  verification,  and  invisible  germs,  whose  sole 
functions  are  those  which  Weismann's  imagination  bestows  on 
them,  are  brought  forward  as  though  they  could  supply  the 
deficiencies  of  Darwin's  theory.  This  is,  indeed,  the  old 
method  of  the  philosophizers  of  nature.  .  .  .  The  worst  feature 
of  the  situation  is  not  so  much  that  Weismann  has  advanced  new 
hypotheses  unsupported  by  experimental  evidence,  but  that  the 
speculation  is  of  such  a  kind  that  it  is,  from  its  very  nature,  un- 
verifiable,  and  therefore  useless."  ' 

Thomson,  though  believing  in  Weismann's  position,  is  cau- 
tious and  says  that  "we  do  not  know  of  any  instance  of  the 
transmission  of  an  acquired  character."  He  further  observes 
that  "those  who  give  an  affirmative  answrer  have  not  succeeded 
in  proving  their  case;  as  for  the  other  side,  how  can  they  prove 

1  T.  H.  Morgan,  Evolution  and  Adaptation,  1903,  j>.  165. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  213 

a  negative?  Therefore,  while  we  have  no  hesitation  as  to  the 
verdict  of  'non-proven'  to  which  the  evidence  at  present  available 
points,  we  do  not  expect  a  satisfactory  issue  until  many  years  of 
experimental  work  have  supervened."1  He  says  that  "The 
Lamarckian  position  is  still  stoutly  maintained— usually  in 
more  or  less  modified  form — by  many  prominent  naturalists, 
especially  in  France  and  America."  2 

Delage  says:  "II  n'est  pas  demontre  que  les  modifications 
acquises  sous  1' influence  des  conditions  de  vie  soient  generale- 
ment  he're'ditaires,  mais  il  parait  bien  certain  qu'elles  le  sont 
quelquefois.  Cela  depend  sans  doute  de  leur  nature."  Thom- 
son, who  quotes  the  above,  does  not  agree  to  it,  but  says:  "This 
is  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  acutest  of  living  biologists."  3  Even 
Thomson,  who  is  a  believer  in  Weismannism,  says:  "It  must 
be  admitted,  therefore,  that  it  is  quite  erroneous  to  think  of  the 
germ-cells  as  if  they  led  a  charmed  life,  uninfluenced  by  any  of 
the  accidents  and  incidents  in  the  daily  life  of  the  body  which 
is  their  bearer.  But  no  one  believes  this,  Weismann  least  of  all, 
for  he  finds  the  chief  source  of  germinal  variations  in  the  stimuli 
exerted  on  the  germ-plasm  by  the  oscillating  nutritive  changes 
in  the  body."  4 

Importance  of  the  Question. — The  question  as  to  the  trans- 
missibility  of  acquired  characters,  says  Thomson,  is  more  than 
a  purely  academic  one,  and  more  than  a  technical  problem  for 
biologists.  "  Our  decision  in  regard  to  it  affects  not  only  our 
whole  theory  of  organic  evolution,  but  even  our  every-day  con- 
duct. The  question  should  be  of  interest  to  the  parent,  the 
physician,  the  teacher,  the  moralist,  and  the  social  reformer — in 
short,  to  us  all."  5 

Educational  Bearings  of  Heredity. — Predispositions. — The 
facts  of  heredity  properly  set  forth  carry  with  them  so  clearly 
the  educational  bearings  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell 
at  great  length  upon  this  phase  of  the  subject.  A  few  con- 
clusions will,  however,  be  suggested. 

^Heredity,  p.  166.  3  Op.  tit.,  p.  172.  3  Op.  cit.,  p.  164. 

4O/>.  cit.,  p.  203.  ''Op.  cit.,  p.  165. 


214  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Physically  and  intellectually  each  individual  has  a  predeter- 
mined norm  toward  which  he  tends  to  grow.  Favorable  environ- 
ment will  develop  these  qualities  to  the  fullest  extent.  If  envi- 
ronmental circumstances  are  especially  auspicious  it  is  possible 
that  natural  tendencies  may  be  stressed  and  hereditary  endow- 
ments slightly  augmented  during  the  lifetime  of  the  individual. 
But  the  individual  is  predestined  to  grow  about  so  tall,  so  heavy, 
to  have  a  given  memory,  a  certain  type  of  imagination,  etc. 
Predestination  in  these  matters  is  just  as  certain  as  in  the  case 
of  blue  or  gray  eyes,  black  or  red  hair,  blonde  or  brunette  skin, 
regular  or  crooked  teeth,  and  dozens  of  other  characteristics 
which  every  one  would  concede  are  unmodified  or  only  slightly 
affected  by  environment.  Crack  oarsmen,  base-ball  and  foot- 
ball stars,  sprinters,  pole-vaulters,  singers,  and  artists  are  not 
created  by  any  school.  They  are  simply  discovered,  and  some- 
times developed.  Much  the  same  is  true  of  poets,  orators, 
musicians,  and  mathematicians. 

Teachers  frequently  become  weighed  down  with  the  impor- 
tance of  their  mission  which  they  have  misconstrued.  They 
assume  that  their  main  function  is  to  create  rather  than  to  de- 
velop. In  view  of  this  they  often  carry  undue  loads  of  responsi- 
bility concerning  the  outcome  of  their  efforts,  and  also  assume 
altogether  too  much  credit  for  the  success  of  pupils  who  win  in 
after  life.  They  say:  "Senator  So-and-So,  Judge  So-and-So, 
were  my  pupils."  Colleges  frequently  use  such  material  for 
advertising.  But  further  than  being  a  selective  agency  and 
stimulating  the  individuals  to  develop  themselves  to  their  maxi- 
mum capability,  the  institution  does  little  in  causing  its  students 
to  become  great.  It  may  cause  them  to  -achieve  greatness,  but 
it  does  not  give  them  greatness.  In  fact,  were  they  not  born 
potentially  great  they  could  never  achieve  greatness. 

Limits  of  Education. — "As  illustrative  of  the  inability  of 
education  or  training  to  develop  mental  powers  beyond  the  limit 
of  hereditary  endowment,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  children  of 
inferior  races  often  manifest  a  marvelous  quickness  of  under- 
standing during  the  earlier  stages  of  an  European  education,  but 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  215 

soon,  and  abruptly,  come  to  a  point  beyond  which  their  intellect- 
ual development  cannot  be  carried.  Thus  the  Hawaiians  have 
an  excellent  memory  and  learn  by  heart  with  remarkable  ease, 
but  it  appears  impossible  to  develop  their  reasoning  power.  In 
New  Zealand,  the  ten-year-old  children  of  the  natives  are  said 
to  be  more  intelligent  than  the  English  children  of  the  same  age, 
but,  with  very  rare  exceptions,  they  are  incapable  of  ever  reach- 
ing the  mental  ability  ultimately  attained  by  the  latter.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  children  of  the  Brahmins,  sprung  from  a  caste 
which  has  been  highly  cultured  through  very  many  generations, 
exhibit  great  intelligence  and  especially  an  acuteness  in  reason- 
ing, whereby  they  show  themselves  vastly  superior  to  the  other 
natives  of  India."  1 

Similar  observations  have  been  frequently  made  regarding 
negro  children.  Up  to  the  age  of  ten  or  eleven  they  appear  even 
precocious.  After  that  age  the  rate  of  progress  decreases  in  a 
marked  degree.  Before  that  time  they  frequently  outstrip  the 
white  children.  After  that  time  they  become  hopelessly  behind 
in  the  race.  The  higher  powers  have  not  sufficiently  well- 
developed  hereditary  tendencies  to  produce  growth  equal  to 
that  in  the  whites. 

History  of  Twins. — Sir  Francis  Galton  in  his  very  interesting 
study  of  twins  draws  several  conclusions  of  much  value  in 
studying  the  relation  between  heredity  and  environment.  He 
clearly  shows  that  although  twins  are  given  the  same  food,  the 
same  physical  surroundings,  the  same  schooling,  the  same 
social  and  mental  environment,  and  in  every  way  treated  as 
nearly  alike  as  possible,  they  often  develop  as  differently  as  if 
they  were  in  no  way  related.  They  may  differ  in  height,  weight, 
personal  appearance,  social  disposition,  and  mental  character- 
istics. The  differing  initial  prepotentialities  are  stronger  than 
any  food,  environment,  or  training  that  could  be  given.  This 
should  not  be  wondered  at,  for  may  not  two  animals  of  different 
species  consume  absolutely  the  same  kind  and  amount  of  food 
and  yet  develop  along  absolutely  different  lines  ?  These  lines  of 

1  McKim,  Heredity  and  Human  Progress,  p.  268. 


216  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

evidence  justify,  in  Galton's  opinion,  the  following  general 
statements: 

"We  may,  therefore,  broadly  conclude,"  says  Galton,  "that 
the  only  circumstance,  within  the  range  of  those  by  which  persons 
of  similar  conditions  of  life  are  affected,  that  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing a  marked  effect  on  the  character  of  adults,  is  illness  or 
some  accident  which  causes  physical  infirmity.  .  .  .  The  impres- 
sion that  all  this  leaves  on  the  mind  is  one  of  some  wonder 
whether  nurture  can  do  anything  at  all,  beyond  giving  instruction 
and  professional  training.  .  .  .  There  is  no  escape  from  the  con- 
clusion that  nature  prevails  enormously  over  nurture  when  the 
differences  of  nurture  do  not  exceed  what  is  commonly  to  be 
found  among  persons  of  the  same  rank  of  society  and  in  the  same 
country."  1 

Implications  of  Weismannism. — According  to  the  doctrine 
of  Weismann,  education  of  the  individual  will  have  no  hered- 
itary effect  upon  his  posterity.  Nothing  that  the  individual 
does  or  accomplishes  during  his  life  can  affect  the  germ-plasm 
or  consequently  his  offspring.  Through  the  example  of  the 
parent  the  education  of  the  offspring  may  be  very  much  affected 
to  be  sure,  but  it  is  not  a  result  of  inheritance.  The  most  disso- 
lute living  would  also  be  without  prejudicial  hereditary  effects 
upon  children  born  after  such  living.  In  explaining  the  conse- 
quences of  the  theory,  Conn  says: 2  "Whatever  be  the  life  that 
the  parents  lead,  whether  of  the  most  ennobling  or  the  most 
debasing  character,  this  will  not  modify  the  characters  which  the 
offspring  would  receive.  .  .  .  Imagine  two  individuals  with  the 
same  congenital  characters,  and  suppose  that  one  is  placed  in 
circumstances  which  lead  him  to  the  lowest  stages  of  dissipation, 
while  the  other  is  surrounded  by  conditions  which  lead  him  to 
live  a  most  upright,  moral  life;  imagine  that  each  has  a  son  who 
is  separated  at  once  from  his  parent  and  brought  up  under 
identical  conditions;  it  would  follow  that  each  of  the  boys 
would  show  the  same  inherited  characters.  The  profligate  life 

"History  of  Twins,"  in  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  pp.  235,  240,  241. 
2  The  Method  of  Evolution,  p.  209. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  217 

of  the  one  parent  and  the  upright  life  of  the  other  would  not 
count  in  inheritance.  .  .  .  From  such  considerations  it  would 
follow  that  the  only  control  that  a  man  has  over  the  inheritance 
of  his  children  is  in  selecting  his  wife." 

Importance  of  Selection. — On  the  other  hand,  a  great  responsi- 
bility is  placed  upon  each  individual  to  aid  natural  selection  in 
allowing  only  the  best  qualities  of  the  race  to  be  transmitted. 
Even  if  Weismannian  theories  be  correct,  the  problem  of  the 
advance  of  civilization  is  not  hopeless.  If  acquired  modifica- 
tions are  transmitted,  the  results  are  the  more  controllable  and 
certain.  It  is  certain  that  education  should  so  enlighten  each 
generation  that  it  would  limit  the  propagation  of  the  species 
to  those  only  who  possess  desirable  physical  and  mental  qualities. 
Education  should  aid  in  the  determination  of  the  ideals  of  life 
to  be  sought,  and  the  means  of  best  attaining  these.  The  social 
heredity  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  should  thus 
become  richer  and  nobler. 

There  is  certainly  great  need  of  wise  measures  to  prevent  the 
perpetuation  and  multiplication  of  many  undesirable  elements  of 
society.  Those  with  hereditary  disposition  to  loathsome  disease, 
the  insane,  the  hopelessly  defective,  and  the  habitual  criminal, 
should  not  only  be  effectively  isolated  from  society,  but  they 
should  be  prevented  from  marrying  and  encumbering  the  earth 
with  their  kind.  They  are  a  perpetual  menace  to  society  and  an 
absolute  means  of  preventing  the  elevation  of  the  general  plane 
of  society.  Their  presence  constitutes  an  effective  check  upon 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  progress.  This  is  in  part  because 
the  expense  entailed  in  maintaining  such  a  class  prevents  the 
rearing  of  others  who  \vould  be  progressive  factors.  Then  their 
presence  contaminates  the  morals  of  the  children  of  the  righteous. 
They  are  to  be  feared  as  a  pestilence.  They  are  gangrenous 
members  which  should  be  excised  from  the  rest  of  the  body 
social  with  the  utmost  promptitude. 

Just  what  means  should  be  adopted  to  aid  in  such  a  selective 
process  is  a  question.  It  is  not  second  in  importance  to  any 
other.  Various  means  have  been  suggested  at  different  time? 


218  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

and  a  few  have  been  tried.  The  Spartans  afford  an  example  of 
the  most  thoroughgoing  attempt.  The  new-born  babe  was 
examined  by  a  state  official  appointed  for  the  purpose.  All 
weaklings  and  defectives  were  at  once  put  to  death,  we  are  told. 
In  just  what  manner  is  a  matter  of  dispute.  Vigorous  and 
physically  perfect  children  were  permitted  to  live,  and  at  once 
adopted  by  the  state.  Henceforth  to  full  maturity  the  physical 
development  of  the  child  was  a  matter  of  supreme  concern. 
Physical  exercise  constituted  the  most  important  part  of  the 
education  of  both  boys  and  girls.  Marriage  was  compulsory 
and  under  supervision  of  the  state.  The  women  of  Sparta  had 
but  one  recognized  function,  that  of  furnishing  physically 
perfect  citizens  for  the  service  of  the  state.  The  type  of  physi- 
cal perfection  attained  has  nowhere  else  been  equalled.  Moral 
and  intellectual  greatness  were  neglected  and  resulted  in  the 
final  overthrow  of  Sparta  by  a  less  hardy,  but  more  intel- 
lectual people.  The  downfall  was  not  a  consequence  of  phys- 
ical vigor,  but  because  of  the  absence  of  that  wrhich  is  still 
higher. 

In  many  States  the  prohibition  of  the  marriage  of  imbeciles 
and  of  idiots  has  been  considered.  Laws  have  been  projected 
in  various  places  to  require  an  educational  test  for  marriage. 
Why  are  not  certain  educational  qualifications  as  sensible  pre- 
requisites for  matrimony  as  for  suffrage?  Connecticut  re- 
cently passed  a  law  providing  that  no  man  or  woman  who  is 
known  to  be  epileptic,  imbecile  or  feeble-minded  shall  marry. 
The  direful  consequences  of  allowing  epileptics  and  the  feeble- 
minded to  become  parents  are  just  beginning  to  be  appreciated.1 
McKim  tells  us2  that  "Echeverria,  after  ten  years'  careful 
research  into  the  character  of  the  offspring  of  epileptics  .  .  . 
found  that  62  male  and  74  female  epileptics  produced  553 
children.  Of  these  latter,  22  were  still-born;  195  died  during 
infancy  from  spasms;  78  lived  as  epileptics;  18  lived  as  idiots; 

1  There  is  a  very  definite  movement  in  many  States  to  pass  laws  restricting  the 
marriage  of  the  above  classes.  Other  laws  have  been  adopted  in  some  States. 
See  Fisher,  Report  on  National  Vitality,  1909,  p.  51. 

*  Heredity  and  Human  Progress,  p.  145. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  219 

39  lived  as  paralytics;  45  were  hysterical;  6  had  chorea;  n 
were  insane;  7  had  strabismus;  27  died  young  from  other 
causes  than  nervous  diseases.  Thus  out  of  the  553  children, 
448  died  early  or  were  gravely  afflicted,  while  105,  or  less  than 
one-quarter  of  the  whole  number,  were  healthy." 

The  principal  of  the  New  York  Institute  for  the  Deaf  and 
Dumb  wrote  that  resulting  from  833  marriages  where  both 
parents  were  deaf,  out  of  3,942  children  born,  1,134  were  defec- 
tives, 308  of  them  being  idiots,  145  deaf  and  dumb,  98  deformed, 
60  epileptics,  85  blind,  38  insane,  300  scrofulous,  883  died  young. 
Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  in  studying  the  causes  of  idiocy  in  Massachu- 
setts, found  114  idiotic  persons  whose  parents  were  known  to  be 
habitual  drunkards,  419  came  from  scrofulous  families,  211  had 
some  near  relatives  either  insane  or  idiotic,  49  had  one  near 
relative  idiotic,  50  had  parents  one  or  both  of  whom  were 
idiots  or  insane. 

David  Starr  Jordan,  who  is  a  believer  in  Weismannism,  says 
that  "So  far  as  science  knows,  education  and  training  play  no 
part  in  heredity.1  The  change  in  the  blood  which  is  the  essence 
of  race  progress,  as  distinguished  from  progress  in  civilization, 
finds  its  cause  in  selection  only.  .  .  .  Evil  influences  may  kill 
the  individual,  but  they  cannot  tarnish  the  stream  of  heredity. 
The  child  of  each  generation  is  free-born  so  far  as  heredity  goes, 
and  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  not  visited  upon  him."  He  says 
further  that  by  proper  selective  breeding  it  is  possible  to  produce 
wonders.  "Almost  anything  may  be  accomplished  with  time 
and  patience."  He  maintains  that  nations  have  died  out  or 
become  degenerate  simply  because  they  have  sent  all  their  best 
blood  to  war.  "Greece  died  because  the  men  who  made  her 
glory  had  all  passed  away  and  left  none  of  their  kind."  The 
wars  of  France  explain  the  French  "  Man  with  the  Hoe."  "  Spain 
died  of  empire  centuries  ago.  She  has  never  crossed  our  path. 
It  was  only  her  ghost  which  walked  at  Manila  and  Santiago." 

1 1  cannot  subscribe  to  the  idea  that  education  and  training  p/ay  no  part 
in  heredity,  but  I  do  recognize  the  importance  of  selection. 

2  The  Blood  of  the  Nation.     See  also  his  recent  book,  The  Human  Harvest. 


220  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Sir  Francis  Galton  has  made  observations  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. He  shows  how  the  Spanish  nation  has  been  drained  of  its 
best  blood  through  persecutions  for  one  reason  or  another. 
Every  year  between  1471  and  1781  an  average  of  1,000  persons 
condemned  for  free  thinking  were  executed.  These  were  the 
strongest  intellects.  During  those  three  centuries,  32,000  were 
burnt  and  117,000  burnt  in  effigy  (and  most  of  these  died  in 
prison).  During  the  same  period,  291,000  were  condemned  to 
imprisonment  for  similar  offences. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  celibacy  was  thought  by  thousands 
of  the  choicest  spirits  to  be  an  absolute  condition  of  righteous- 
ness, with  the  consequence  that  many  of  the  best  men  of  the  time 
left  no  posterity.  Thus  the  rudest  portion  of  the  community 
were  left  to  be  the  parents  of  succeeding  generations.  Thus 
were  practised,  says  Galton,  "the  arts  which  breeders  would 
use,  who  aimed  at  creating  ferocious,  currish,  and  stupid  natures. 
No  wonder  that  club  law  prevailed  for  centuries  over  Europe; 
the  wonder  rather  is  that  enough  good  remained  in  the  veins  of 
Europeans  to  enable  their  race  to  rise  to  its  present  very  moderate 
level  of  natural  morality."  l  He  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the 
Dark  Ages  in  Europe  were  largely  due  to  the  disastrous  results 
of  celibacy.  He  also  points  out  that  the  English  universities  en- 
couraged celibacy  by  offering  their  fellowships  and  other  honors 
to  their  most  talented  sons  on  one  condition,  namely,  that  they 
should  not  marry.  As  those  positions  have  a  life  tenure,  include 
free  board,  lodging,  a  reasonable  income,  good  society,  and  op- 
portunity for  scholastic  pursuits,  they  are  eagerly  accepted. 
Through  this  a  great  national  loss  is  entailed.  One  of  the 
seeming  penalties  of  higher  education  and  civilization  is  that  of 
bequeathing  the  world  to  the  children  of  the  peasantry  and  of 
the  slums.  With  higher  standards  of  life  fewer  marriages  take 
place  and  fewer  children  are  born  into  each  family. 

Galton  on  Heredity  and  Limits  of  Education. — To  prove  that 

•heredity  and  not  training  is  responsible  for  great  mental  ability, 

Galton2  states  that  the  majority  of  those  who  gained  the  greatest 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  344.  "Ibid,  p.  15. 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  221 

mathematical  prizes  at  Cambridge  were  boys  who  had  received 
practically  no  training  before  going  to  Cambridge.  They  com- 
peted with  boys  from  the  "  Great  Public  Schools"  who  had  been 
coached  all  their  lives  to  the  limit  of  their  capacities.  But  few 
of  the  latter  class  ever  became  "senior  wranglers,"  i.  e.,  won 
the  highest  place  in  the  competitive  examinations.  Galton 
claims  that  children  born  of  exceptionally  gifted  parents 
stand  "an  enormously  greater  chance  of  turning  out  to  be 
gifted  in  a  high  degree"  than  children  born  of  mediocre 
parents. 

Many  of  the  greatest  students  of  juvenile  criminals  are  con- 
vinced that  heredity  is  responsible  for  the  criminality  of  that 
portion  of  juvenile  offenders  who  cannot  be  reformed.  Of  the 
juvenile  prison  population  a  large  percentage  are  descendants 
of  such  feeble  stock  that  they  have  lost  their  parents  early  in 
life.  In  these  extreme  cases  no  amount  of  education  and  no 
quality  of  environment  would  have  been  adequate  to  redeem 
them  to  society.  Maudsley  said  on  this  point:1  "It  is  an 
indisputable  though  extreme  fact  that  certain  human  beings  are 
born  with  such  a  native  deficiency  of  mind  that  all  the  training 
and  education  in  the  world  will  not  raise  them  to  the  height  of 
brutes;  and  I  believe  it  to  be  not  less  true  that,  in  consequence  of 
evil  ancestral  influences,  individuals  are  born  with  such  a  flaw  or 
warp  of  nature  that  all  the  care  in  the  world  will  not  prevent  them 
from  being  vicious  or  criminal  or  becoming  insane.  Education, 
it  is  true,  may  do  much;  .  .  .  but  we  cannot  forget  that  the 
foundations  on  which  the  acquisitions  of  education  must  rest 
are  not  acquired,  but  inherited." 

Galton  does  not  believe  that  education  can  do  much  for  the 
genius,  by  which  term  he  means  merely  the  eminently  gifted.  In 
fact,  he  does  not  believe  that  education  can  very  materially 
change  the  nature  of  any  individual.  He  says  that  all  types 
"breed  true"  to  their  kind,  and  consequently  one's  ancestry 
predestines  one  to  a  given  sphere  of  existence.  Individual 
equality  is  unthinkable  and  should  not  be  taught.  He  says: 

1  Body  and  Mind,  p.  68. 


222  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

"I  have  no  patience  with  the  hypothesis  occasionally  expressed, 
and  often  implied,  especially  in  tales  written  to  teach  children  to 
be  good,  that  babies  are  born  pretty  much  alike,  and  that  the 
sole  agencies  in  creating  differences  between  boy  and  boy,  and 
man  and  man,  are  steady  application  and  moral  effort.  It  is 
in  the  most  unqualified  manner  that  I  object  to  pretensions  of 
natural  equality.  The  experiences  of  the  nursery,  the  school, 
the  university,  and  of  professional  careers,  are  a  chain  of  proof 
to  the  contrary.  I  acknowledge  freely  the  great  power  of  educa- 
tion and  social  influences  in  developing  the  active  powers  of  the 
mind,  just  as  I  acknowledge  the  effect  of  use  in  developing  the 
muscles  of  a  blacksmith's  arm,  and  no  further.  Let  the  black- 
smith labor  as  he  will,  he  will  find  there  are  certain  feats  beyond 
his  power  that  are  well  within  the  strength  of  a  man  of  hercu- 
lean make,  even  though  the  latter  may  have  led  a  sedentary 
life." 

Every  man,  says,  Galton,  finds  his  natural  level.  He  com- 
petes with  many,  distances  some,  and  is  distanced  by  others. 
He  may  try  in  various  lines  but  with  quite  similar  results.  Bar- 
ring a  certain  amount  of  advantage  coming  from  opportunity 
and  encouragement  and  similar  disadvantages  due  to  a  lack 
of  opportunity,  Galton's  conclusions  are  undoubtedly  correct. 
Difficulties  and  discouragement  serve  to  repress  mediocre  indi- 
viduals more  than  the  great.  This  must  include  moral  great- 
ness. On  the  other  hand,  encouragement  and  opportunity 
mean  little  to  the  idiot  or  weak-minded.  Hence  the  great  middle 
class  are  the  most  benefited  by  educational  opportunities.  He 
says:  "If  a  man  is  gifted  with  vast  intellectual  ability,  eagerness 
to  work  and  power  of  working,  I  cannot  comprehend  how  such 
a  man  should  be  repressed.  The  world  is  always  tormented 
with  difficulties  waiting  to  be  solved — struggling  with  ideas  and 
feelings,  to  which  it  can  give  no  adequate  expression.  If,  then, 
there  exists  a  man  capable  of  solving  those  difficulties,  or  of 
giving  a  voice  to  those  pent-up  feelings,  he  is  sure  to  be  welcomed 
with  universal  acclamation.  We  may  almost  say  that  he  has 
only  to  put  his  pen  to  paper  and  the  thing  is  done.  I  am  here 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  223 

speaking  of  the  very  first-class  men — prodigies — one  in  a  million, 
or  one  in  ten  millions."  l 

He  remarks  further:2  "I  feel  convinced  that  no  man  can 
achieve  a  very  high  reputation  without  being  gifted  with  very 
high  abilities."  He  even  maintains  that  those  who  possess 
great  capacity  will  find  opportunity  to  manifest  it,  even  though 
early  training  be  neglected. 

Testimony  from  Neurology. — "In  the  association  areas  our 
memory  records  of  past  experiences  and  their  connections  are 
laid  down  in  some,  as  yet  unknown,  material  change  in  the  net- 
work of  nerve  cells  and  fibres.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  nervous 
system,  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  efficiency  of  the  nervous 
machinery  is  conditioned  partly  by  the  completeness  and  char- 
acter of  training,  but  largely  also  by  the  inborn  character  of  the 
machinery  itself.  The  very  marked  differences  among  intelli- 
gent and  cultivated  persons — for  instance,  in  the  matter  of  mu- 
sical memory  and  the  power  of  appreciating  and  reproducing 
musical  harmonies — cannot  be  attributed  to  differences  in  train- 
ing alone.  The  gifted  person  in  this  respect  is  one  who  is  born 
with  a  certain  portion  of  his  brain  more  highly  organized  than 
that  of  most  of  his  fellow-men.  This  general  conception  that 
the  special  capacities  of  talented  individuals  rest  chiefly  upon 
inborn  differences  in  structure  or  organization  of  the  brain  may 
be  regarded  as  one  outcome  of  the  modern  doctrine  of  localization 
of  functions  in  this  organ.  In  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  it  seems  to  have  been  the  general  view  that  those  who 
had  a  high  degree  of  mental  capacity  might  direct  their  activity 
with  equal  success  in  any  direction  according  to  the  training 
received.  A  man  who  could  walk  fifty  miles  to  the  north,  it  was 
said,  could  just  as  easily  walk  fifty  miles  to  the  south,  and  a  man 
whose  training  made  him  an  eminent  mathematician  might, 
with  different  training,  have  made  an  equally  eminent  soldier 
or  statesman.  In  our  day,  however,  with  our  ideas  of  the 
organization  of  the  brain  cortex,  and  our  knowledge  that 
different  parts  of  this  cortex  give  different  reactions  in  con- 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  35.  2  Ibid.,  p.  43. 


224  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

sciousness,  it  seems  to  follow  that  special  talents  are  due  to 
differences  in  organization  of  special  parts  of  the  cortex."  1 

Donaldson  says,2  from  a  study  of  the  nervous  system  and  its 
development,  that  "The  general  relations  of  formal  education 
to  tfye  growing  process  are  fairly  evident,  the  function  of  it  is 
to  round  out  the  original  framework  of  the  central  system,  in 
accordance  with  the  natural  provisions  there  present.  Without 
question  there  is  something  very  fatalistic  in  this.  No  amount 
of  education  will  cause  enlargement  or  organization  where  the 
rough  materials,  the  cells,  are  wanting;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
where  these  materials  are  present,  they  will,  in  some  degree, 
become  evident,  whether  purposely  educated  or  not." 

Donaldson  further  writes: 3  "Education  must  fail  to  produce 
any  fundamental  changes  in  the  nervous  organization,  but  to 
some  extent  it  can  strengthen  formed  structures  by  exercise, 
and  in  part  waken  into  activity  the  unorganized  remnant  of  the 
dormant  cells.  No  amount  of  cultivation  will  give  good  growth 
where  the  nerve  cells  are  few  and  ill-nourished,  but  careful 
culture  can  do  much  where  there  are  those  with  strong  inherent 
impulses  towrard  development.  On  neurological  grounds,  there- 
fore, nurture  is  to  be  considered  of  much  less  importance  than 
nature,  and  in  that  sense  the  capacities  that  we  most  admire  in 
persons  worthy  of  remark  are  certainly  inborn  rather  than 
made." 

Thorndike  writes: 4  "The  importance  to  educational  theory 
of  a  recognition  of  the  fact  of  original  nature  and  of  exact  know- 
ledge of  its  relative  share  in  determining  life's  progress  is  ob- 
vious. It  is  wasteful  to  attempt  to  create  and  folly  to  pretend 
to  create  capacities  and  interests  which  are  assumed  or  denied 
to  an  individual  before  he  is  born.  The  environment  acts  for 
the  most  part  not  as  a  creative  force,  but  as  a  stimulating  and 
selective  force.  We  can  so  arrange  the  circumstances  of  nurture 
as  to  reduce  many  undesirable  activities  by  giving  them  little 

1  W.  H.  Howell,  Text-Book  of  Physiology,  pp.  220-221. 

2  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  355.  3  Op.  tit.,  p.  343. 
4  Educational  Psychology,  p.  44. 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  225 

occasion  for  appearance,  and  to  increase  the  desirable  ones  by 
insuring  them  an  adequate  stimulus.  We  can,  by  the  results  we 
artificially  attach  to  wisdom,  energy,  or  sympathy,  select  them  for 
continuance  in  individual  lives.  But  the  results  of  our  endeavors 
will  forever  be  limited  as  a  whole  by  the  slow  progress  of  change 
in  the  original  nature  of  the  race,  and  in  different  individuals  by 
inborn  talents  and  defects.  .  .  .  The  one  thing  that  educational 
theorists  of  to-day  seem  to  place  as  the  foremost  duty  of  the 
schools — the  development  of  powers  and  capacities — is  the  one 
thing  that  the  schools  or  any  other  educational  forces  can  do 
least." 

Physical,  Mental,  and  Moral  Correlations. — A  study  of  heredity 
emphasizes  the  correlation  between  mind  and  body  and  between 
intellectual  and  moral  life.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases 
criminality  is  an  accompaniment,  possibly  a  consequence,  of 
bodily  defect.  Dr.  MacMillan  of  the  Child  Study  Department 
of  the  Chicago  schools  is  confident  that  bodily  defects  coexist 
with  mental  defects  even  when  it  is  impossible  to  detect  them  by 
ordinary  means.  Morrison  claims  that  among  juvenile  offend- 
ers, a  high  percentage  are  developed  feebly  on  the  physical  side. 
"The  physical  basis  of  mental  life  is  in  a  worse  condition 
amongst  juvenile  offenders  as  a  body  than  amongst  the  ordinary 
population." 

Social  Heredity  and  Morality. — Moral  qualities  are  much  less 
determined  by  biological  heredity  than  are  physical  and  mental. 
They  are  much  more  coefficients  of  environment  and  social 
heredity.  Biological  heredity  is  largely  determinative  of 
physical  size  and  strength  and  mental  power,  while  environment 
largely  determines  what  use  will  be  made  of  them.  I  have 
emphasized  the  correlation  between  physical  development  and 
criminality,  but  I  have  also  pointed  out  the  fact  that  about  eighty 
per  cent,  of  all  juvenile  offenders  are  reformable.  Every  one 
knows  of  the  Apollos  in  physical  development  who  are  the  basest 
kind  of  scoundrels  and  of  persons  with  puny,  undeveloped, 
diseased  bodies  coupled  with  beautiful  characters.  Of  course 
no  one  can  ever  develop  the  highest  type  of  positive  moral  char- 


226  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

acter  without  possessing  abundant  mental  power  and  vigor. 
Mediocre  intellectuality  can  never  be  coupled  with  the  highest 
morality.  There  must  be  vigor  of  brain  to  have  vigor  of  mind, 
and  there  must  be  vigor  of  mind  to  have  moral  vigor.  But  I 
cannot  subscribe  to  the  theories  of  Lombroso  and  his  school  of 
criminologists  who  maintain  that  facial  and  other  external 
bodily  features  are  an  absolute  index  to  mental  and  moral 
qualities. 

The  use  to  which  we  devote  our  mental  and  physical  powers 
is  largely  a  moral  question.  Most  people  know  sufficiently  well 
what  they  ought  to  do  and  what  they  ought  to  avoid.  Though 
great  ignorance  still  prevails,  yet  the  besetting  sins  of  the  age  are 
those  due  to  a  lack  of  moral  fibre.  Moral  qualities  are  the  most 
susceptible  of  modification;  moral  interests  give  direction  to  all 
we  do.  Hence,  the  most  important  phase  of  education  is  moral 
education.  How  apt  we  are  to  concentrate  all  our  attention 
and  all  our  energies  upon  a  few  facts  of  arithmetic  and  geography 
and  entirely  neglect  the  implantation  of  great  moral  ideals! 

Individuality  and  Education. — The  foregoing  discussion  must 
not  be  construed  as  an  argument  against  education.  It  is  a 
strong  plea  for  the  wisest  education  possible.  An  analysis  of 
education  from  the  stand-point  of  heredity  discloses  its  possibili- 
ties as  well  as  its  limitations.  No  two  children  possess  abilities 
equal  in  kind  or  degree.  It  is  a  false  doctrine  of  education  which 
assumes  that  they  do.  The  better  recognition  of  individual 
capacities  and  differences  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  demands 
of  education.  Children  have  been  treated  in  masses  too  long. 
The  education  must  be  made  to  fit  the  child  and  not  the  child 
the  educational  system.  A  study  of  the  family  history  and 
hereditary  tendencies  will  assist  greatly  in  discovering  capacities 
and  in  determining  the  best  means  and  methods  of  education  for 
individual  cases. 

In  arguing  as  above  one  is  quite  sure  to  meet  incredulous 
persons  who  are  certain  to  mention  stories  of  great  men  and 
women  who  are  said  to  have  sprung  into  prominence  from  the 
weakest,  most  worthless,  and  most  profligate  ancestry.  Pin  such 


NATURE  AND   NURTURE  227 

a  person  down  and  he  will  fail  to  prove  a  single  case  of  the  sort. 
True,  many  of  the  world's  illustrious  have  had  humble  parent- 
age and  have  sprung  from  apparent  obscurity.  But  a  study  of 
family  history  will  always  reveal  intellectual  greatness  some- 
where in  the  line  of  descent — and  not  very  remote.  Holmes 
well  says  that  it  takes  three  generations  to  make  a  gentlemr 
and  it  takes  many  more  than  three  times  three  to  make  an  ir.L 
lectual  giant.  Many  of  the  giant  intellects  of  the  world  have  not 
been  illustrious.  They  may  have  lived  in  poverty  and  obscurity, 
unstimulated  by  any  great  cause  which  enlisted  their  enthusiasm 
and  brought  to  light  their  greatness. 

Obscurity  must  not  be  confused  with  inferiority.  But  for 
chance  circumstances  many  of  the  most  illustrious  names  of 
history  would  have  been  unknown.  With  different  environment 
at  the  opportune  time,  thousands  of  obscure  names  might  have 
been  emblazoned  on  the  pages  of  history.  Remember  the  poet's 
expression : 

"Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear, 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen 

And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

Sometimes  there  is  an  alternation  of  generations,  and  qualities 
which  make  for  intellectual  greatness  seem  to  lie  dormant,  and 
again  intermarriages  change  the  whole  current  of  growth.  It  is 
possible  for  intellectual  cultivation  to  be  pursued  so  continuously 
and  so  tensely  that  physical  vitality  is  undermined.  Nature 
then  demands  a  rotation  in  order  to  recuperate  the  depleted 
treasury.  There  is  grave  danger  that  modern  civilizations  are 
too  exclusively  intellectual  at  the  expense  of  physical  vigor. 
With  the  sudden  abandonment  of  manual  labor  and  a  de- 
pendence upon  wits,  it  is  very  probable  that  intellectual  develop- 
ment is  proceeding  at  a  pace  which  cannot  be  supported  by 
the  degenerating  bodies.  Evidence  is  easy  to  mass  from  the 
facts  that  lawyers,  doctors,  ministers,  teachers,  kings  of  finance, 
and  others  who  live  by  brain  alone  do  not  leave  enough  children 
to  keep  up  the  average  of  population,  and  these  children  with 


228  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

hypersensitized  devitalized  bodies.  The  tillers  of  the  soil,  the 
street  laborers,  and  the  dwellers  in  the  slums,  who  survive  by 
sheer  muscular  force,  are  the  ones  who  are  peopling  the  earth, 
and  their  children  must  as  certainly  possess  it. 

These  are  not  arguments  against  intellectual  education,  but 
rather  for  a  proper  balance  between  mental  and  physical  culture. 
A  revival  of  the  Greek  ideal  of  harmony  between  the  two,  with 
our  superior  knowledge  of  the  means  of  attaining  the  two, 
would  speedily  put  mankind  ahead  so  far  that  future  generations 
would  regard  the  present  as  exceedingly  primitive. 

Discovery  and  Ministration. — Though  education  cannot 
greatly  modify  capacity,  it  can  discover  powers;  it  can  minister 
to  them;  it  can  develop  to  their  utmost  those  that  are  potential. 
In  these  respects  our  educational  methods  have  been  wofully  at 
fault.  By  insisting  that  the  business  of  education  is  to  create 
power,  great  possibilities  have  been  neglected.  Discovery, 
stimulation,  ministration,  and  development  offer  unlimited  fields 
of  opportunity  for  work  in  education.  It  is  seldom  that  an  indi- 
vidual has  developed  in  any  direction  to  his  greatest  capacity. 
It  is  seldom  that  one  has  been  studied  by  his  guardians — parents 
and  teachers — so  that  they  know  his  possibilities  and  his  limita- 
tions. Still  less  frequently  has  the  study  been  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  become  a  means  of  self-revelation  to  the  individual. 
Too  often  the  emphasis  in  his  education  has  been  placed  on  the 
attempt  to  "round  out"  in  harmony  with  some  misconceived 
ideal.  In  the  " rounding-out  process"  little  progress  has  been 
made  and  meanwhile  hidden  talents  have  remained  undis- 
covered, allowed  to  atrophy  and  decay,  or  even  worse,  to  be 
ruthlessly  snubbed  or  uprooted. 

What  gardeners  would  set  up  an  artificial  ideal  of  "all-round 
ness"  in  horticulture  and  try  to  make  all  plants  grow  of  the  same 
height,  the  same  thickness,  the  same  greenness,  the  same  juici- 
ness, the  same  flavor,  or  the  same  odor  ?  No,  we  must  have  trees 
and  shrubs  and  vines;  creepers  and  climbers;  oaks  and  squashes; 
apples  and  thistles.  And  even  among  apples  we  must  have  the 
crabapples,  the  Baldwins,  the  Duchesses,  and  the  Tallman 


NATURE  AND  NURTURE  229 

Sweets.  Similarly  among  men,  we  must  have  the  black,  the 
yellow,  the  copper,  and  the  white;  blonde  and  brunette;  blue- 
eyed  and  black;  the  tall  and  slim,  and  the  short  and  thick-set;  the 
musical,  the  mathematical,  and  the  artistic;  the  choleric  and  the 
phlegmatic;  the  farmer,  the  merchant,  the  lawyer,  the  doctor, 
the  laborer,  and  the  inventor;  the  soldier  and  the  statesman;  and 
thousands  of  others,  each  filling  his  niche  and  necessary  to  the 
welfare,  happiness,  and  progress  of  all  the  others. 

Heredity  and  Race  Education. — -To  all  who  have  a  broad 
educational  vision  and  who  are  concerned  for  the  welfare  of  the 
race  as  well  as  for  the  individual,  the  study  of  heredity  should 
extend  much  hope.  Education  becomes  a  race  question.  He- 
redity is  the  great  conservator  of  all  life  forces.  Every  effect 
produced  in  the  individual  is  preserved  and  effects  are  cumula- 
tive. To  be  sure,  this  is  not  encouraging  to  the  one  who  wastes 
his  substance  in  riotous  living.  But  we  sin  against  such  a 
one  in  giving  him  comfort  and  assurances  of  a  final  happy 
outcome,  regardless  of  his  life.  He  will  rise  up  and  call  us 
blessed  if  we  sternly  impress  upon  him  the  inexorableness  of 
nature's  laws.  He  must  be  shown  that  he  cannot  overdraw  his 
bank  account  ad  libitum.  The  day  of  reckoning  is  a  certainty, 
and  nature  is  an  errorless  book-keeper.  She  cannot  be  cheated. 
The  account  is  absolutely  correct.  With  the  same  unerring 
accuracy  nature  keeps  the  account  of  the  righteous  man.  What 
he  saves  is  not  only  kept  inviolate,  but  it  is  sure  to  pay  compound 
interest  in  the  form  of  health,  strength,  and  character. 

Similarly  with  the  race  the  question  of  progress  or  retrogression 
is  simply  figured  out  by  that  arch  banker,  nature.  If  all  indi- 
viduals of  the  race  could  only  wisely  keep  their  balance  on  the 
right  side  of  the  ledger,  what  tremendous  reserves  and  dividends 
we  should  soon  have  to  be  used  for  new  enterprises  and  con- 
quests! We  know  this  to  be  true  in  developing  plants  and 
animals,  but  ho\v  prodigal  in  the  case  of  mankind!  Galton 
says:  "I  argue  that,  as  a  new  race  can  be  raised  to  so  great  a 
degree  of  purity  that  it  will  maintain  itself,  with  moderate  care 
in  preventing  the  more  faulty  members  of  the  flock  from  breed- 


230  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ing,  so  a  race  of  gifted  men  might  be  obtained  under  exactly 
similar  conditions."  For  long  years  Galton  has  pondered  this 
great  question.  As  a  result  of  his  thinking  a  new  science  is 
being  discovered — that  of  eugenics.  The  University  of  London 
has  established  the  "Francis  Galton  Laboratory  for  National 
Eugenics."  From  that  laboratory  there  will  soon  be  published 
a  Treasury  of  Human  Inheritance,  which  will  contain  family 
histories  illustrating  various  types  of  heredity,  such  as,  intellect- 
ual ability,  tuberculous  stocks,  epileptic  tendencies,  physical 
depravity,  etc.1 

1  For  literature  on  eugenics  consult:  Galton,  "Eugenics,  Its  Definition, 
Scope,  and  Aim,"  Am.  Jour,  of  Soc.,  10:  1-6,  1904;  Karl  Pearson,  The  Scope 
and  Importance  to  the  State  of  the  Science  of  National  Eugenics,  Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press;  Pearson,  A  First  Study  of  the  Statistics  of  Pulmonary  Tuberculosis, 
Delau  &  Co.,  1907;  Fisher,  "Report  on  National  Vitality,"  Bulletin  30  of  the 
Committee  of  One  Hundred  on  National  Health,  Government  Printing  Office, 
Washington,  1909;  Saleeby,  "The  Psychology  of  Parenthood,"  Eugenics  Review, 
April,  1909;  Bateson,  W.,  The  Methods  and  Scope  of  Eugenics,  Cambridge 
University  Press,  1908;  Saleeby,  Parenthood  and  Race  Culture,  1909. 


LIBR  ARV 

STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL 

MANUAL  ARTS  AND  HOME  ECONOMICS 

SANTA  BARBARA,  CALIFORNIA 


CHAPTER  X 
CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY 

THIS  is  a  subject  which  has  not  received  adequate  considera- 
tion in  pedagogics.  Some  account  has  been  taken  of  it  in  recent 
medical  literature,  but  even  there  the  importance  attached  to  it 
has  been  slight  compared  with  its  merits.  We  are  still  too  much 
under  the  domination  of  drugs  and  nostrums.  In  innumerable 
cases  where  drugs  have  brought  relief,  the  cures  in  reality  have 
been  brought  about  by  mental  states.  The  only  difference  be- 
tween such  cures  and  those  effected  by  drugless  therapeutics 
is  that  with  the  majority  of  people  the  drugs  are  a  necessary 
means  in  producing  the  desired  mental  beliefs.1 

Influence  of  Mind  Over  Body. — If  we  reflect  a  little  we  shall 
realize  that  the  mind  exerts  a  most  powerful  influence  over 
bodily  states.  We  know  that  grief  causes  the  face  to  become 
pallid,  while  joy  produces  heightened  color.  Love,  shame,  and 
anger  bring  blushes  to  the  cheek.  Grief  and  sorrow  stimulate 
the  lachrymal  glands  to  action.  The  same  emotional  states 
produce  retarded  circulation,  impaired  digestion,  and  the  entire 
body  often  suffers  in  efficiency.  Joy  and  happiness,  on  the 
other  hand,  increase  the  heart  action,  the  blood  goes  bounding 
on  its  way;  respiration  is  deeper,  the  digestive  organs  are  toned 
up  and  physical  vigor  is  manifested  in  every  bodily  action. 

The  sight  of  food  often  causes  the  mouth  to  water.  The 
thought  of  a  disgusting  sight  may  produce  nausea  and  vomiting. 
A  French  physician,  Dr.  Durand,  reported  that  he  made  experi- 

1  This  chapter  is  not  an  endorsement  of  any  so-called  Christian  Science  or 
faith  cures,  although  each  of  those  makes  use  of  the  fundamental  principles  for 
which  I  shall  contend.  When  one  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  all  disease  is 
imaginary,  that  no  disease  is  real,  or  that  drugs  cannot  assist  nature,  or  that 
thinking  can  replace  a  lost  limb  or  reset  a  broken  bone,  the  position  becomes 
not  only  unscientific  and  unphilosophical,  but  absurd. 

231 


232  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

ments  upon  one  hundred  hospital  patients  by  giving  them 
drinks  of  sugared  water  and  then  pretending  "to  have  made  a 
mistake  in  inadvertently  giving  them  an  emetic,  instead  of 
syrup  of  gum.  The  result  may  easily  be  anticipated  by  those 
who  can  estimate  the  influence  of  the  imagination.  No  fewer 
than  eighty — four-fifths — were  immediately  sick.  How  many 
of  the  rest  suffered  from  nausea  is  not  stated."  1 

The  salivary  glands  are  profoundly  affected  by  mental  states, 
especially  emotions.  Every  school-boy  who  has  gone  to  the  plat- 
form to  declaim  and  who  has  felt  any  degree  of  stage  fright, 
knows  of  the  dryness  of  the  mouth  that  in  turn  becomes  a  source 
of  difficulty  and  embarrassment.  The  story  of  the  ancient  Hin- 
doo method  of  discovery  of  thieves  among  suspected  servants 
in  a  family  has  become  a  classic.  Each  offender  was  required  to 
chew  a  quantity  of  rice  for  a  few  minutes.  The  one  who  had  the 
driest  mouthful  was  deemed  the  offender.  The  gastric  fluid 
is  so  much  affected  by  fear  that  its  secretion  may  be  entirely  sus- 
pended. This  has  been  noted  among  animals  as  well  as  in  the  case 
of  man.  Good  cheer  probably  promotes  the  flow  of  the  gas- 
tric juice,  for  the  digestion  is  certainly  aided  by  cheerful  emotions. 

Fear  has  a  very  great  influence  over  the  heart.  We  have  the 
classic  example  of  this  in  the  story  of  the  prisoner  condemned  to 
death  by  bleeding.  He  was  placed  in  a  chair,  blindfolded,  the 
back  of  a  knife-blade  drawn  across  the  wrist  and  a  little  tepid 
water  made  to  trickle  over  the  wrist.  A  few  tremors  ensued 
and  then  he  became  quiet.  The  bandage  wyas  removed  and  the 
bystanders  beheld  a  staring  corpse.  Fear  had  stopped  all 
cardiac  action. 

Every-day  experience  demonstrates  that  actions  of  the  body 
except  those  which  are  reflex  and  automatic  are  under  control 
of  the  mind.  In  the  discussion  of  volitions  an  attempt  will  be 
made  to  show  that  even  many  reflexes  may  have  a  mental  origin. 
Anatomy  shows  that  the  stimuli  from  the  outside  world  acting 
upon  the  senses  in  some  way  induce  sensations,  perceptions, 
feelings,  and  other  mental  states.  In  turn  the  different  nerve 
1  Hack  Tuke,  Influence  of  the  Mind  upon  the  Body,  p.  126. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  233 

currents  which  have  excited  mental  changes  are  succeeded  by 
efferent  currents  from  the  brain  and  other  central  ganglia  which 
excite  muscular  action.  Pathology  has  demonstrated  that  men- 
tal diseases  are  frequently  due  to  brain  diseases.  Post-mortem 
examinations  even  show  that  frequently  particular  brain  lesions 
are  correlated  with  particular  mental  diseases.  Any  direct 
disturbance  of  the  brain  by  means  of  vivisection  or  through 
accident  usually  produces  mental  aberration  of  some  kind. 
Excision  of  different  parts  shows  corresponding  characteristic 
mental  changes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  removal  of  the  cerebrum 
or  the  cerebellum  of  frogs  and  pigeons.  Physical  exercise  in 
moderation  promotes  mental  activity,  a  good  supply  of  oxygen 
is  the  best  mental  tonic,  while  excessive  physical  exercise  pro- 
ducing fatigue  has  a  depressing  mental  effect.  The  effects  of 
various  drugs,  such  as  opiates,  stimulants,  and  narcotics,  are  well 
known.  Thousands  are  yearly  made  mental  wrecks  by  dosing 
their  bodies  with  opium,  chloral,  or  alcoholic  stimulants.  The 
cigarette  fiend  among  our  schoolboys  is  not  only  dwarfed  in  body, 
but  his  mind  suffers  even  a  worse  fate.  Some  sicknesses,  such  as 
fevers  and  neurasthenia,  cause  a  great  variety  of  mental  affec- 
tions. Blows  received  on  the  head  or  other  parts  of  the  body 
frequently  cause  unconsciousness.  Bodily  death  means  cessa- 
tion of  mental  activities.  Psychologists  have  demonstrated  that 
when  imagining  any  thing  precisely  the  same  centres  are  in- 
nervated as  when  perceiving  the  same  thing.  Crook  the  finger 
and  think  hard  of  pulling  the  trigger  of  a  pistol  and  fatigue  will 
ensue  as  if  the  action  had  really  been  performed.  Imagined 
activity  in  dreams  is  often  more  fatiguing  than  the  reality  in 
waking  hours.  Excessive  day-dreaming  is  as  exhausting  as 
genuine  work.  The  imagined  states  in  certain  pathological 
processes  are  especially  debilitating.  It  is  said  that  medical 
students  studying  the  heart  and  directing  their  thoughts  to  it 
frequently  suffer  from  its  disturbed  action.  The  eminent 
surgeon,  John  Hunter,  is  quoted  by  Tuke  as  saying:  "I  am 
confident  that  I  can  fix  my  attention  to  any  part  until  I  have  a 
sensation  in  that  part."  Suppose  a  person  is  told  that  there  is 


234  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

an  ant  or  a  big  worm  crawling  upon  the  back  of  his  neck.  If 
the  statement  is  believed,  in  many  cases  the  ant  or  worm  will  be 
felt,  though  not  there.  The  writer  once  suggested  to  a  popular 
audience  that  they  think  intently  that  ants  were  on  their  necks. 
So  vividly  did  one  woman  experience  the  sensation  suggested 
that  she  went  into  hysterics. 

So  decidedly  do  vivid  imaginations  of  a  given  state  affect  some 
persons  that  they  often  sympathetically  suffer  precisely  as  others 
whose  sufferings  they  witness.  Personally  I  have  suffered 
acutely  from  a  given  pain  when  witnessing  others  in  agony  from 
the  same.  Tuke  cites  the  following  case  related  by  Quain  at 
the  Westminster  Medical  Society:  "A  gentleman  who  had 
constantly  witnessed  the  sufferings  of  a  friend  afflicted  with 
stricture  of  the  oesophagus,  had  so  great  an  impression  made  on 
his  nervous  system,  that  after  some  time  he  experienced  a  similar 
difficulty  of  swallowing,  and  ultimately  died  of  the  spasmodic 
impediment  produced  by  merely  thinking  of  another's  pain."  l 

Fear  exerts  a  profound  influence  upon  all  the  organs  of  the 
body,  causing  the  knees  to  shake,  the  hand  to  tremble  as  with 
palsy,  the  tongue  to  cleave  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  the  lips  to 
move  as  in  pantomime,  the  eyes  to  stare  as  if  starting  from  their 
sockets,  the  face  to  blanch  and  its  muscles  to  twitch,  the  heart  to 
thump,  to  flutter,  or  to  cease  action.  It  may  even  produce 
complete  syncope. 

Anger  affects  the  body  so  decidedly  that  often  control  is 
completely  lost.  Heart  failure  is  a  frequent  effect  of  uncon- 
trollable anger.  The  eminent  surgeon  John  Hunter  was  a 
constant  sufferer  from  the  effects  of  emotional  excitement.  In 
relating  an  affecting  story  his  articulation  was  always  much 
disturbed.  He  used  to  say:  "My  life  is  at  the  mercy  of  any 
scoundrel  who  chooses  to  put  me  in  a  passion."  His  words 
proved  prophetic,  for  when  arguing  before  a  hospital  board  for  a 
certain  measure  he  made  some  remarks  which  were  contradicted 
by  a  colleague:  "Hunter  immediately  ceased  speaking,  retired 
from  the  table,  and  struggling  to  suppress  the  tumult  of  his 

'Tuke,  Op.  cit.,  p.  126. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  235 

passion,  hurried  into  an  adjoining  room,  which  he  had  scarcely 
reached,  when  with  a  deep  groan,  he  fell  lifeless."  ' 

Joy  may  affect  the  heart  as  seriously  as  fright  or  grief.  History 
records  that  the  old  doorkeeper  of  Congress  died  on  hearing  the 
joyful  news  of  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis.  Tuke  even  remarks 
that:  "If  we  take  two  persons  and  subject  one  to  the  operation 
of  a  depressing,  the  other  to  that  of  an  exciting  emotion,  the 
former  may  remain  calm  and  the  latter  faint  away.  Yet,  in 
many  instances,  such  is  the  actual  result.  Lord  Eglinton  in- 
formed John  Hunter  that  when  two  soldiers  were  condemned 
to  be  shot,  but  one  was  to  receive  a  pardon,  the  event  being 
decided  by  their  throwing  dice,  the  one  who  proved  successful — 
thus  procuring  a  reprieve — generally  fainted,  while  the  one  to  be 
shot  remained  calm." 

A  veterinary  surgeon  was  about  to  be  operated  upon.  He 
was  not  a  nervous  person  and  went  to  the  operating-room 
calmly  and  without  apparent  fear,  but  at  the  moment  of  be- 
ginning the  operation  he  turned  pale,  fainted,  and  in  ten  minutes 
was  dead.  The  result  was  plainly  due  to  shock  from  the  appre- 
hension concerning  the  result.2  Cases  are  recorded  in  which  the 
patient  faints  on  seeing  the  surgeon.  Undoubtedly  thousands 
of  persons  have  died  of  fright  as  a  result  of  practical  jokes. 
The  newspapers  and  medical  journals  abound  in  well-authenti- 
cated cases.  Tuke  relates  the  case  of  a  man  condemned  to  die 
by  the  headsman's  axe.  His  head  was  placed  upon  the  block 
and  the  executioner  prepared  to  strike  the  fateful  blow.  A 
tumult  outside  caused  a  cessation;  a  reprieve  had  come.  They 
turned  to  communicate  the  joyful  news  to  the  doomed  man. 
Alas!  his  spirit  had  flown.  Fright  had  become  his  executioner. 

It  is  popularly  believed  that  fright  blanches  the  hair.  Byron 
wrote  of  the  Prisoner  of  Chillon: 

"His  hair  was  white  but  not  with  years, 
Nor  grew  it  white  in  a  single  night, 
As  men's  have  grown  from  sudden  fears." 

1  Tuke,  loc.  cit.,  p.  270. 

2  The  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,  July  28.  1866. 


236  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

From  another  source: 

"For  deadly  fear  can  Time  outgo, 
And  blanch  at  once  the  hair." 

No  doubt  the  popular  belief  finds  support  in  pathological 
records.  Montesquieu  tells  us  that  his  own  hair  became  gray 
in  a  single  night  on  receiving  distressing  news  concerning  his 
son.  Marie  Antoinette  is  said  to  have  become  gray  in  her  last 
agony.  So  great  an  effect  is  possible  that  continued  anxiety  of 
mind  may  cause  the  hair  to  fall. 

Undoubtedly  many  of  the  diseases  of  human  life  are  purely 
imaginary.  Quacks,  charlatans,  and  vendors  of  patent  medi- 
cines thrive  from  the  traffic  in  cure-all  medicines  advertised 
conspicuously  before  a  gullible  public.  Unsophisticated  persons 
and  those  with  disordered  imaginations  read  the  descriptions  of 
symptoms  and  forthwith  begin  to  picture  those  states  in  them- 
selves. The  nostrums,  mainly  alcoholic  preservatives,  fre- 
quently effect  "cures"  through  the  help  of  the  imagination. 
Such  persons  remain  improved  or  cured  until  a  new  set  of  symp- 
toms is  suggested  to  them,  when  they  resort  again  to  the  six 
bottles  for  five  dollars  or  the  hundred  doses  for  a  dollar.  Not 
seldom  do  the  frequent  dosings  induce  real  diseases. 

It  is  especially  true  that  when  coupled  with  grief  imaginary 
diseases  make  serious  inroads  upon  the  health.  Many  people 
nurse  their  griefs  and  other  ailments  until  their  constitutions  are 
undermined.  I  believe  that  many  cases  of  insanity  are  directly 
traceable  to  excessive  nursing  of  grief.  Every  one  is  in  a  large 
measure  responsible  for  his  sanity  or  insanity  of  mind.  An 
effort  to  keep  the  mind  filled  with  wholesome,  uplifting  thoughts 
brings  its  own  reward  no  less  definite  than  when  morbid  ideas 
are  harbored. 

Miinsterberg  Quoted. — "That  mind  and  body  come  in  con- 
tact," says  Miinsterberg,  "is  a  conviction  which  goes  with  every 
single  sense-perception.  I  see  and  hear  because  light  and  sound 
stimulate  my  sense-organs,  and  the  sense-organs  stimulate  my 
brain.  ...  In  the  same  way  it  seems  a  matter  of  course  that 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  237 

mind  and  body  are  connected  wherever  an  action  is  performed. 
I  have  the  will  to  grasp  for  the  book  before  me,  and  obediently 
my  arm  performs  the  movement;  the  muscles  contract  them- 
selves, the  whole  physical  apparatus  comes  into  motion  through 
the  preceding  mental  fact.  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  only  the  impression 
of  outer  stimuli  and  the  expression  of  inner  thoughts  in  which 
mind  and  body  come  together.  Daily  life  teaches  us,  for  in- 
stance, how  our  mental  states  are  dependent  upon  most  various 
bodily  influences.  If  the  temperature  of  the  blood  is  raised  in 
fever,  the  mental  processes  may  go  over  into  far-reaching  con- 
fusion; if  hashish  is  smoked,  the  mind  wanders  to  paradise,  and 
a  few  glasses  of  wine  may  give  a  new  mental  optimism  and 
exuberance;  a  cup  of  tea  may  make  us  sociable,  a  dose  of  bromide 
may  annihilate  the  irritation  of  our  mind,  and  when  we  inhale 
ether,  the  whole  content  of  consciousness  fades  away.  In  every 
one  of  these  cases  the  body  received  the  chemical  substance,  the 
blood  absorbed  and  carried  it  to  the  brain,  and  the  change  in  the 
brain  was  accompanied  by  a  change  in  the  mental  behavior. 
Even  ordinary  sleep  at  night  presents  itself  surely  as  a  bodily 
state — the  fatigued  brain  cells  demand  their  rest,  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  the  whole  mental  life  becomes  entirely  changed.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  carry  over  such  observations  of  daily  life  to  the 
more  exact  studies  of  the  psychological  laboratory  and  to  ex- 
amine with  the  subtle  means  of  the  psychological  experiment  the 
mental  variations  which  occur  with  changes  of  physical  condi- 
tions. We  might  feel,  without  instruments,  that  our  ideas  pass 
on  more  easily  after  a  few  cups  of  strong  coffee,  but  the  labora- 
tory may  measure  that  with  its  exact  methods,  and  study  in 
thousandth  parts  of  a  second  the  quickening  or  retarding  in  the 
flow  of  ideas.  Every  subjective  illusion  being  excluded,  our 
electrical  clocks,  which  measure  the  rapidity  of  mental  action  and 
of  thought  association,  will  show  then  beyond  doubt  how  every 
change  in  the  organism  influences  the  processes  of  the  mind. 
Bodily  fatigue  and  indigestion,  physical  health  and  blood  circu- 
lation, everything,  influences  our  mental  make-up.  In  the 
same  way  it  is  the  laboratory  experiment  which  shows  by  the 


238  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

subtlest  means  that  every  mental  state  produces  bodily  effects 
where  we  ordinarily  ignore  them.  As  soon  as  we  apply  the 
equipment  of  the  psychological  workshop,  it  is  easy  to  show  that 
even  the  slightest  feeling  may  have  its  influence  on  the  pulse  and 
the  respiration,  on  the  blood  circulation  and  on  the  glands;  or, 
that  our  thoughts  give  impulse  to  our  muscles  and  move  our 
organs  when  we  ourselves  are  entirely  unaware  of  it."  l 

Psycho-Physical  Parallelism. — The  doctrine  of  psycho-physical 
parallelism  maintains  that  all  mental  processes  have  concomi- 
tant physical  processes.  It  is  not  asserted  that  the  physical  life 
is  the  cause;  rather  the  accompaniment  or  concomitant.  The 
question  of  causal  relations  is  purposely  avoided.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  consider  it  in  psychology  any  more  than  it  is  in  physics. 
We  may  say  that  two  physical  changes,  as  the  striking  of  the 
bell  by  a  hammer  and  the  sound  emitted,  are  concomitants  of 
each  other,  without  becoming  involved  in  the  endless  and  futile 
speculation  as  to  causal  relations.  Similarly  we  may  discuss 
concomitant  mental  and  physical  phenomena  without  placing 
upon  ourselves  any  obligations  to  discuss  the  problem  of  cau- 
sality. The  doctrine  of  psycho-physical  parallelism  has  been 
summed  up  in  the  sentence:  " There  is  no  psychosis  without 
neurosis." 

We  do  not  know,  for  instance,  how  light  produces  chemical 
changes,  or,  in  fact,  how  any  chemical  changes  are  produced. 
But  we  know  that  the  changes  are  produced  and  are  willing  to 
trace  the  sequential  relations  as  far  as  possible  and  not  become 
impatient  if  the  exact  way  the  change  occurs  is  unexplained.  In 
plant  physiology  we  trace  out  the  life-processes  like  the  circula- 
tion of  the  sap,  the  division  of  cellular  structures  and  the  repro- 
duction of  new  cells,  the  absorption  of  water  and  mineral  foods 
in  solution,  the  exhalation  of  oxygen  through  the  stomata;  we 

1  Mtinsterberg,  Psychotherapy,  pp.  34-36. 

Note. — My  own  manuscript  on  the  chapter  on  "Correlations  Between  Mind 
and  Body"  was  written  (though  unpublished)  at  least  three  years  before 
Miinsterberg's  above-mentioned  book  appeared.  I  take  great  pleasure  in  quot- 
ing liberally  some  confirmatory  passages  from  Miinsterberg's  book. — THE 
AUTHOR. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  239 

watch  the  formation  of  flowers,  their  fertilization  and  their 
change  into  fruit,  and  we  say  "how  wonderful  is  life!"  We  do 
not  say,  "Now,  Mr.  Biologist,  you  must  tell  me  what  life  is,  or 
how  sunshine  and  air  are  changed  into  plant  tissue,  or  we  shall 
discredit  the  whole  explanation." 

Similarly  in  the  study  of  mental  life:  though  we  cannot  tell 
how  a  wave  of  light  or  of  sound  excites  an  idea,  yet  we  know  that 
a  correlation  exists  between  them,  and  it  is  the  province  of  the 
psychologist  to  study  this  sequential  relation.  It  is  absolutely 
futile  to  attempt  to  study  the  phenomena  of  mind  without 
studying  at  the  same  time  its  bodily  concomitants.  It  is  still 
more  barren  of  results  to  try  to  study  means  of  mental  develop- 
ment and  culture  without  considering  the  physical  conditions 
most  conducive  to  the  production  of  the  desired  mental  life. 
Child-study  and  physiological  psychology  have  ushered  in  a  new 
era  in  educational  science. 

Spencer  says:  "No  thought,  no  feeling,  is  ever  manifested 
save  as  a  result  of  a  physical  force.  This  principle  will  before 
long  be  a  scientific  commonplace."  "That  all  of  the  psychic 
changes  are  accompanied  by  the  display  of  energy  in  some  form 
of  material  change  in  the  nervous  structures,  is  the  most  striking 
and  far-reaching  conclusion  of  modern  psychology.  .  .  .  The 
general  data  of  biology  go  to  show  that  no  physical  change  can 
take  place  in  a  living  animal  without  directly  or  indirectly 
affecting  the  psychical  condition  of  the  animal.  The  psychical 
change  may  follow  immediately  as  a  sensation,  and  may  remain  as 
a  new  association  in  memory,  or  it  may  be  a  subconscious  nervous 
co-ordination;  or  again  the  psychical  change  may  be  only  a 
gradual  change  of  the  state  of  feeling,  increasing  or  decreasing 
the  vitality  or  general  nervous  activity  of  the  animal."  1  To 
consider  them  as  concomitants  is  not  to  subscribe  to  any  doctrine 
of  materialism  or  to  maintain  that  man  is  an  automaton  or  a 
machine.  When  I  assert  that  a  ray  of  light  stimulated  the 
retina  giving  rise  to  a  nervous  impulse  that  traversed  the  optic 
nerve,  in  turn  producing  cerebral  changes,  which  signs  were 
1  Orr,  A  Theory  of  Development  and  Heredity,  p.  83. 


24o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

translated  into  knowledge  of  the  flowers  or  trees,  I  am  not  main- 
taining that  knowledge  begins  with  brain  motion  and  ends  there. 
I  am  not  saying  that  the  brain  is  a  machine  for  converting  sun- 
light into  thought.  Not  at  all.  I  still  assume  the  existence  of  a 
mind  which  is  able  to  use  this  material  means  and  the  exhibition 
of  potentialities  which  I  in  no  wise  attempt  to  explain.  But 
I  do  know  that  when  I  examine  into  the  workings  of  mind,  in 
order  to  understand  as  much  as  possible  I  must  examine  the 
concomitant  nervous  processes.  Further,  if  I  wish  to  secure 
given  mental  results  in  myself  or  in  others,  I  must  heed  the  cor- 
relative physiological  laws.  If  I  work  too  far  into  the  night,  my 
brain  becomes  fagged  and  my  ideas  will  not  develop.  I  must  rec- 
ognize that  in  all  mental  work  I  develop  my  impressions  through 
bodily  means  and  that  I  must  employ  bodily  means  (hand, 
tongue,  etc.)  in  order  to  give  them  expression.  This  is  one  of 
the  most  important  lessons  that  a  leader  of  children  could  learn. 

Dr.  Carpenter  has  put  it:  "So  long  as  either  the  mental  or 
the  bodily  part  of  man's  nature  is  studied  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
other,  it  seems  to  the  writer  that  no  real  progress  can  be  made  in 
psychological  science  [I  should  add,  or  in  educational  science]; 
for  that  which  '  God  hath  joined  together, '  it  must  be  vain  for 
man  to  try  to  put  asunder."  * 

Brain  Size  and  Intelligence. — Various  popular  notions  prevail 
respecting  the  relation  between  brain  size  and  mental  ability. 
Some  suppose  that  there  is  a  definite  measurable  relation  between 
the  size  (weight)  of  brains  and  intelligence;  others  consider  that 
there  is  absolutely  no  relation.  Recent  researches  by  careful 
neurologists  tend  to  make  one  very  conservative  upon  this  topic. 
So  many  individual  variations  occur  that  definite  assertions 
should  be  made  with  caution.  While  it  is  found  that  the  brain 
of  Cuvier  the  great  naturalist  weighed  1,830  grams  and  that  of 
Abercrombie  the  celebrated  physician  weighed  1,785  grams, 
yet  it  is  recorded  that  the  brain  of  Liebig  the  illustrious  chemist 
weighed  only  1,352  grams,  that  of  Whewell  the  renowned 
philosopher  1,390  grams,  and'  that  of  Tiedemann  the  celebrated 

1  Mental  Physiology,  p.  2. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  241 

anatomist  only  1,254  grams.  It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  find 
laboring  men  of  very  moderate  intelligence  with  a  brain  weight  of 
1,50x3  grams  or  more.  Thus,  while  it  is  true  that  we  should 
find  more  very  small  brains  among  persons  of  low  intelligence, 
and  more  very  large  brains  among  persons  of  a  high  order  of 
intelligence,  than  vice  versa,  yet  it  would  be  unsafe  to  say  that 
size  of  brain  and  intelligence  are  invariably  correlated  with  each 
other.  Donaldson1  says:  "While  the  heaviest  brain-weights 
belong  to  the  European  races  and  the  lightest  to  the  Australians, 
thus  giving  a  moderately  wide  difference  in  the  weight  of  the 
brain  corresponding  to  a  wide  difference  in  culture,  yet  it  is 
quite  impossible  even  in  such  a  condensed  series  to  harmonize 
the  intermediate  groups  with  the  theory  that  brain-weight  and 
culture,  as  we  measure  it,  are  closely  correlated." 

In  a  comparative  table  Donaldson  shows  that  the  average 
brain-weight  of  European  females  is  a  little  less  than  that  of 
Australian  males,  and  remarks  that,  "the  inference  from  brain- 
weight  directly  to  intelligence  is  not  a  happy  one."  His  final 
conclusion  is  that  the  result  of  recent  investigations  concerning 
the  correlation  of  these  two  qualities  "contributes  mainly  to  a 
healthy  scepticism  concerning  the  current  interpretation  of  brain- 
weight." 

Still  more  positive  statements  are  current  with  reference  to  the 
correlation  between  the  convolutions  of  the  brain  and  intelligence 
than  concerning  size  and  intelligence.  Almost  every  school 
physiology  has  contained  statements  which  have  led  the  boys  and 
girls  almost  invariably  to  rattle  off  parrot-fashion  that  the  more 
convoluted  the  surface  of  the  brain  the  greater  the  intelligence  of 
its  possessor.  The  statement  is  made  that  the  higher  in  the 
scale  of  animal  life,  the  more  convolutions  appear  in  the  brain. 
Donaldson  is  authority  for  the  statement  that:  "The  signifi- 
cance of  fissuration  as  an  index  of  intelligence  receives  no  sup- 
port from  comparative  anatomy,  since  the  brains  of  ruminants 
are  much  more  convoluted  than  those  of  the  dog,  while  the 
heavier  and  more  intelligent  birds  have  brains  that  are  nearly 

1  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  120. 


242  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

smooth."  *  The  researches  go  to  show  that  no  constant  relation 
obtains  between  fissuration  and  intelligence.  Certain  schools 
have  maintained  that  the  brains  of  criminals  are  differently 
fissured  from  those  of  normal  individuals.  Donaldson  denies 
this,  although  he  says  that  since  the  foetal  brain  is  smooth,  early 
disturbances  of  its  growth  are  forerunners  of  abnormalities  of 
fissures  later  in  life,  and  these  abnormalities  of  structure  are 
usually  accompanied  by  mental  abnormalities.  It  has  also 
been  maintained  that  the  brains  of  males  have  deeper  fissures 
than  the  brains  of  females.  Although  it  is  generally  agreed 
that  the  male  brain  tends  to  be  more  extensively  fissured,  yet 
"there  are  no  characters  by  which  the  sex  of  a  given  brain  can 
be  recognized  with  certainty."  2 

It  should  be  conceded,  however,  that  although  within  a  given 
class  the  variations  in  fissuration  are  not  great  enough  to  warrant 
positive  declarations  concerning  the  direct  relation  between 
convolutions  and  intelligence,  yet  the  different  classes  of  animals 
are  distinctly  different  in  this  respect.  It  should  also  be  stated 
that  the  more  highly  civilized  races  have  somewhat  heavier 
brains  than  the  uncivilized  races.  Bastian 3  confirms  this 
general  position.  He  records  observations  showing  that  the 
average  weight  of  several  Europeans'  brains  was  1,390  grams, 
while  the  average  weight  of  a  number  of  negroes'  brains  was 
1,255  grams.  Many  more  cases  need  to  be  recorded  in  order  to 
gain  more  accurate  data.  Great  care  should  also  be  taken  to 
study  the  different  tissues  to  see  whether  the  gross  weight  comes 
from  genuine  brain  matter  or  from  other  tissues  which  may  make 
up  the  bulk. 

It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  the  majority  of  idiots  have  very  small 
brains.  Cases  have  been  found  where  an  idiot's  brain  weighed 
only  241  grams.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  congenital  idiots 
have  brains  of  normal  size  and  weight.  Insane  persons  are  too 
often  classed  as  idiots,  but  this  is  absolutely  erroneous,  as  an 
insane  person  is  one  who  lacks  balance  and  is  not  necessarily 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  201.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  200. 

3  The  Brain  as  an  Organ  of  Mind,  chap.  20. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  243 

devoid  of  intelligence.  Some  persons  become  imbecile  through 
disease  and  these  should  not  be  classed  with  congenital  idiots. 
Bastian  writes: *  "Where  the  weight  of  the  brain  falls  below  a 
certain  minimum  standard,  the  possession  by  its  owner  of  any- 
thing like  ordinary  human  intelligence  seems  to  be  impossible. 
Gratiolet,  without  specifying  the  sex,  supposed  this  lower  limit 
of  weight  to  be  about  31  ^  ounces,  or  900  grams.  Broca  places 
it  somewhat  higher,  fixing  upon  32  ounces,  or  907  grams,  as  the 
limit  for  the  female,  and  37  ounces,  or  1,049  grams,  as  the  lower 
limit  of  weight  for  the  male  brain,  compatible  with  ordinary 
human  intelligence." 

Carpenter  says:2  "There  is,  however,  a  marked  diversity 
in  respect  of  size  between  the  brains  of  different  races  of  men; 
those  of  the  most  civilized  stocks,  whose  powers  have  been  culti- 
vated and  improved  by  education  through  a  long  series  of  genera- 
tions, being  for  the  most  part  considerably  larger  than  those  of 
savage  tribes,  or  of  the  least  advanced  among  our  own  peasantry. 
So  far  as  can  be  judged  from  the  few  cases  which  have  furnished 
adequate  materials  for  the  determination,  the  brains  of  those 
earliest  races  of  men,  which  (like  the  old  'flint- folk')  had  made 
but  a  very  slight  advance  in  the  arts  of  life,  were  extremely 
small" 

Spencer,  Fiske,  and  Romanes  have  shown  that  in  general 
there  is  a  close  correspondence  between  intelligence  and  the 
possession  of  organs  capable  of  varied  muscular  activities. 
Brain  bulk  alone  does  not  tell  the  story  of  intelligence,  but  the 
possession  of  a  nervous  mechanism  so  highly  specialized  as  to 
give  co-ordination  of  a  great  variety  of  actions  is  even  more 
significant.  Complexity  of  structure  is  more  significant  than 
mass.  The  extent  of  convoluted  surface,  and  the  number  and 
complexity  of  the  lobes  growing  from  the  brain-stem  are  good 
indexes  of  intelligence.  Romanes  3  quotes  Dujardin,  who  says 
that  in  the  case  of  ants  "the  degree  of  intelligence  exhibited 
stands  in  an  inverse  proportion  to  the  amount  of  cortical  sub- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  364.  2  Mental  Physiology,  p.  95. 

'Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  p.  46. 


244  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

stance,  or  in  direct  proportion  to  the  amount  of  the  peduncular 
bodies  and  tubercles." 

Psychological  and  Zoological  Scale  Compared. — An  examina- 
tion of  the  brains  of  extinct  species  shows  that  their  cerebral 
lobes  were  much  smaller  than  in  present  closely  related  species. 
Prof.  E.  Ray  Lankester,  who  probably  first  drew  attention 
to  the  fact  and  its  significance,  wrote  the  following:1  "It  is 
well  established  that  the  extinct  mammalia  of  the  middle  and 
lower  tertiaries  had — as  compared  with  their  nearest  living 
congeners — an  extremely  small  cerebrum.  The  exact  figures 
are  not  important,  but  titanotherium — a  true  rhinoceros — had 
certainly  not  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  cerebral  nervous  sub- 
stance which  is  possessed  by  the  living  rhinoceros.  Dinoceras, 
representing  a  distinct  group  of  ungulata,  had  even  a  smaller 
brain.  Yet  in  bulk  these  animals  were  as  large  as,  or  larger 
than,  the  largest  living  rhinoceros." 

Now  what  is  the  significance  of  the  increase  of  the  proportional 
cerebral  development?  The  added  size  is  not  necessary  for 
physical  control.  The  lower  centres  furnish  this  in  abundance. 
Many  of  the  lowliest  animals  control  the  movements  of  the 
muscles  much  more  skilfully  than  man  can  possibly  do.  Any 
one  would  be  quite  content  to  run  as  swiftly  as  a  dog,  to  jump)  as 
far  and  as  dexterously  as  a  cat,  or  to  approximate  the  agility  of  the 
lion  or  monkey.  In  fact,  the  intellectual  giant  is  often  the  muscu- 
lar pigmy,  and  the  clown  in  movement.  Since  the  dawn  of  mind 
development  has  been  turned  in  directions  more  useful  than  the 
maintenance  of  muscular  strength  and  skill. 

"Man  is  born  with  fewer  ready-made  tricks  of  the  nerve-cen- 
tres— those  performances  of  an  inherited  nervous  mechanism 
so  often  called  by  the  ill-defined  term  'instincts' — than  are  the 
monkeys  or  any  other  animal.  Correlated  with  this  absence 
of  inherited  ready-made  mechanism,  man  has  a  greater  capacity 
for  developing  in  the  course  of  his  individual  growth  similar 
nervous  mechanisms  .  .  .  than  any  other  animal.  He  has  a 
greater  capacity  for  'learning'  and  storing  his  individual 

1  Nature,  61  :   624,  April  26,  1900. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  245 

experience,  so  as  to  take  the  place  of  the  more  general  inherited 
brain  mechanisms  of  lower  mammals.  Obviously  such  brain 
mechanisms  as  the  individual  thus  develops  (habits,  judgments, 
etc.)  are  of  greater  value  in  the  struggle  for  existence  than  are 
the  less  specially-fitted  instinctive  inborn  mechanisms  of  a  race, 
species  or  genus.  The  power  of  being  educated — 'educability' 
— as  we  may  term  it — is  what  man  possesses  in  excess  as  com- 
pared with  the  apes.  I  think  we  are  justified  in  forming  the 
hypothesis  that  it  is  this  'educability'  which  is  the  correlative 
of  the  increased  size  of  the  cerebrum."  * 


TABLE  SHOWING  RELATION  BETWEEN  BRAIN-WEIGHT  AND  BODY- 
WEIGHT,  AND  OF  BRAIN  TO  WHOLE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM. 


CLASSES 

BRAIN 
TO  BODY 

BRAIN  TO 
NERVOUS  SYSTEM 

Fishes  

i  :  1,000 
i  :  1,000 
i  :  100 
i  :  200 

5 
3 
3° 

1  =  5  times 
1  =  3  times 
i  =  30  times 

Reptiles  

Birds  

Mammals  

Man  

While  there  is  an  apparent  justification  for  assuming  that  the 
higher  in  the  zoological  scale  the  higher  the  mental  order,  yet 
there  are  many  notable  exceptions.  We  find  also  that  the  zoolog- 
ical classification  will  not  answer  for  a  scale  based  on  mentality. 
It  is  a  fact  that  small  animals  have  larger  brains  proportionately 
than  large  animals.  Some  of  the  smallest  birds  have  larger 
brains  proportionately  than  man.  A  table  showing  brain- 
weight  compared  with  body-weight  would  place  the  sheep 
higher  than  the  elephant.  Whoever  knows  the  stupidity  of  the 
former  and  the  sagacity  of  the  latter  can  contradict  that. 

Of  more  significance  than  size  is  the  proportional  amount  of 
gray  and  white  matter.  The  gray  matter  being  the  generator  of 
nervous  force  and  the  white  the  transmitter,  it  is  obvious  that 

1  E.  Ray  Lankester,  Nature,  61 :  624. 

a  Le  Conte,  Comparative  Physiology  and  Morphology  of  Animals,  p.  73. 


246  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

gray  matter  is  the  better  index  of  organization.  In  the  ascending 
scale  of  life  we  find  that  there  is  a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of 
gray  matter.  Correlated  with  this  in  a  general  way  we  find 
that  the  greater  the  proportion  of  gray  matter  the  more  numerous 
the  convolutions  of  the  brain  affording  surface  for  it.  All 
animals  below  the  mammals  have  smooth  brains.  In  general, 
the  higher  the  class  psychically  the  more  convoluted  the  brain 
surface.  Man  has  the  most  convoluted  brain  of  all  the  animals. 
There  are  certain  variations  in  the  general  relations,  however, 
that  should  be  noted.  It  is  not  so  necessary  for  small  brains  as 
for  large  ones  to  be  convoluted.  A  small  brain  has  relatively 
more  surface  than  a  large  one,  because  the  surfaces  of  solids 
vary  with  the  square  of  the  diameters,  while  bulk  varies  as  the 
cube  of  the  diameters.  Thus  all  large  animals  have  convoluted 
brains  while  all  small  ones  have  smooth  ones. 

The  most  significant  visible  feature,  however,  is  the  size  of  the 
cerebral  lobe.  A  most  cursory  examination  of  a  series  of  brains 
showrs  an  ever-increasing  amount  of  cerebral  surface  as  the 
zoological  scale  ascends.  No  other  feature  is  so  indicative  of 
the  grade  of  intelligence.  Each  succeeding  order  has  a  larger 
proportion  of  cerebral  matter,  and  the  higher  the  species  within 
the  order  zoologically,  the  better  developed  the  cerebrum.  There 
is  no  doubt  also  that  cerebral  development  is  closely  correlated 
with  intelligence.  The  control  of  deliberative  thought  and  all 
higher  psychoses  is  a  function  of  the  cerebrum.  The  most 
striking  difference  between  the  brain  of  a  man  and  an  ape  is  in 
the  degree  of  cerebral  development.  This  is  easily  inferred  by 
comparing  a  series  of  brains  with  the  character  of  mental  life 
exhibited  by  those  classes  of  animals  represented.  Even  a  tyro 
would  arrive  at  this  inference.  Experiments  and  observations 
made  possible  through  accidental  lesions  and  through  purposive 
brain  surgery  all  tend  to  confirm  the  empirical  opinion  that  the 
frontal  lobes  are  the  seat  of  the  higher  mental  life.  In  examining 
a  series  of  brains  from  fishes  to  man  the  feature  which  shows 
steady  progress  is  that  of  the  cerebrum.  All  the  features  except 
the  cerebrum  are  practically  as  large  and  as  well  developed  in 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  247 

many  of  the  lower  animals  as  in  man.  In  some  cases,  for  exam- 
ple, the  olfactory  lobes  in  dogs,  cats,  and  other  animals,  are 
much  in  excess.  The  frontal  lobes  are  plainly  of  no  advantage 
in  merely  controlling  the  vital  processes,  for  what  animal  is  so 
fragile  as  man?  It  is  only  after  long  generations  of  medical 
skill  that  it  is  possible  to  bring  more  than  one-half  of  the  human 
race  to  maturity,  while  lower  animals  seldom  die  of  disease. 
Cerebral  development  does  not  minister  to  skill  in  muscular 
movement.  Who  does  not  envy  the  animals  their  power  of 
locomotion  and  marvellous  strength  and  speed?  In  definite 
instinctive  endowment,  again,  man  is  inferior  to  lower  animals. 
The  lower  centres  control  reflex  and  instinctive  movements. 
They  are  also  the  centres  which  conserve  all  automatic  processes 
and  habits  involving  muscular  movements. 

The  highly  developed  frontal  lobes  are  certainly  the  physio- 
logical structures  which  have  made  possible  a  high  degree  of 
education  in  man.  No  animal  devoid  of  this  development  can 
plan  deliberate  action  or  make  much  use  of  experiences  in  the 
interpretation  and  mastery  of  new  situations.  Though  they 
accomplish  many  instinctive  automatic  actions  with  wonderful 
precision  and  rapidity,  they  benefit  little  by  experience  and  suc- 
ceeding generations  execute  the  same  actions  and  in  the  same 
practically  unchanged  manner.  Therefore  we  may  conclude 
that  highly  developed  cerebral  lobes  are  an  index  of  educability. 
In  idiots  and  persons  of  a  low  order  of  mentality  this  portion 
of  the  brain  is  usually  poorly  developed.  Conversely  Carpenter 
says l  that  "where  the  cerebrum  is  so  imperfectly  developed  as  to 
be  greatly  under  the  average  size,  there  is  a  marked  deficiency 
in  intelligence,  amounting  to  absolute  idiocy." 

The  weight,  size,  and  general  configuration  of  the  nervous 
system  are  good  indexes  of  the  scale  of  life  occupied,  but  within 
a  given  species  undoubtedly  the  quality  of  the  tissues  themselves 
is  more  determinative  of  the  rank  which  the  individual  is  to 
occupy.  Scales,  microscopes,  and  chemical  reagents  have  thus 
far  failed  to  reveal  just  what  those  structural  differences  may  be; 

1  Mental  Physiology,  p.  97. 


248  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

but  that  such  exist  can  scarcely  be  doubted.  We  all  know  that 
mere  size  and  form  of  muscles  are  not  absolute  indexes  of  strength. 
Frequently  a  small  individual  is  both  actually  stronger  and  has 
a  greater  vital  capacity  than  much  larger  ones.  So  it  is  with 
brains.  Quality  as  well  as  quantity  and  proportion  must  be 
taken  into  account. 

James  wrote  in  this  connection: l  "All  nervous  centres  have 
then,  in  the  first  instance,  one  essential  function,  that  of  '  intelli- 
gent action.'  They  feel,  prefer  one  thing  to  another,  and  have 
'ends.'  Like  all  the  organs,  however,  they  evolve  from  ancestor 
to  descendant,  and  their  evolution  takes  two  directions,  the  lower 
centres  passing  downward  into  more  unhesitating  automatism, 
and  the  higher  ones  upward  into  larger  intellectuality.  Thus 
it  may  happen  that  those  functions  which  can  safely  grow  uniform 
and  fatal  become  least  accompanied  by  mind,  and  that  their 
organ,  the  spinal  cord,  becomes  a  more  and  more  soulless  ma- 
chine; whilst  on  the  contrary  those  functions  which  it  benefits 
the  animal  to  have  adapted  to  delicate  environing  variations 
pass  more  and  more  to  the  hemispheres,  whose  anatomical 
structure  and  attendant  consciousness  grow  more  and  more 
elaborate  as  zoological  evolution  proceeds.  In  this  way  it 
might  come  about  that  in  man  and  the  monkeys  the  basal  ganglia 
should  do  fewer  things  by  themselves  than  they  can  do  in  dogs, 
fewer  in  dogs  than  in  rabbits,  fewer  in  rabbits  than  in  hawks, 
fewer  in  hawks  than  in  pigeons,  fewer  in  pigeons  than  in  frogs, 
fewer  in  frogs  than  in  fishes,  and  that  the  hemispheres  should  cor- 
respondingly do  more.  This  passage  of  functions  forward  to  the 
ever  enlarging  hemispheres  would  be  itself  one  of  the  evolutive 
changes,  to  be  explained  like  the  development  of  the  hemispheres 
themselves,  either  by  fortunate  variation  or  by  inherited  effects 
of  use.  The  reflexes,  on  this  view,  upon  which  the  education  of 
our  human  hemispheres  depends,  would  not  be  due  to  the  basal 
ganglia  alone.  They  would  be  tendencies  in  the  hemispheres 
themselves,  modifiable  by  education,  unlike  the  reflexes  of  the 
medulla  oblongata,  pons,  optic  lobes  and  spinal  cord." 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  p.  79. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  249 

Le  Conte  writes:  *  "In  the  process  of  development,  whether 
in  the  evolution  series,  or  in  the  taxonomic  series,  or  in  the  em- 
bryonic series,  we  observe  the  same  order.  Organisms  are  at 
first  unmodified  cell-aggregates.  From  such  aggregates  tissues 
performing  different  functions  are  differentiated.  From  this 
time  onward  cephalization  begins.  Among  the  tissues  there  is  a 
gradually  increasing  dominance  of  the  highest,  .  .  .  the  nervous 
tissue.  Then,  in  the  nervous  tissue  a  gradually  increasing 
dominance  of  the  highest  part,  viz.,  the  brain.  Then,  in  the 
brain  a  gradually  increasing  dominance  of  the  highest  ganglion, 
viz.,  the  cerebrum.  Then,  in  the  cerebrum  a  gradually  increasing 
dominance  of  the  highest  substance,  the  surface  gray  matter, 
as  shown  by  the  complexity  of  the  convolutions.  And,  lastly, 
among  the  convolutions  a  gradually  increasing  dominance  of  the 
highest,  viz.,  those  in  the  frontal  lobe,  as  shown  by  the  position  of 
the  fissure  of  Rolando.  In  all  there  is  an  increasing  dominance 
of  the  higher  over  the  lower,  and  of  the  highest  over  all.  This  is 
everywhere  the  law  of  evolution."  As  Gaskell  has  said:  "The 
law  for  the  whole  animal  kingdom  is  the  same  as  for  the  individ- 
ual. Success  in  this  world  depends  upon  brains."  2 

Psychotherapeutics. — As  diseases  are  induced  and  aggravated 
by  the  imagination,  conversely  the  alleviation  and  the  cure  of 
disease  are  much  dependent  upon  the  imagination.  It  is  un- 
scientific to  assert  that  all  disease  is  purely  imaginary  or  that 
there  is  no  disease.  Unfortunately  the  world  is  altogether  too 
full  of  suffering  and  disease.  But  we  should  not  lose  sight  of 
the  well-established  laws  of  mental  and  bodily  interaction  and 
should  utilize  this  knowledge  in  every  possible  manner.  Every 
good  physician  consciously  or  unconsciously  does  this.  What 
success  would  a  physician  have  if  every  time  he  entered  the  sick- 
room he  remarked  in  the  following  fashion:  "This  is  the  worst 
case  I  ever  knew;  much  like  one  I  had  last  week  that  proved 
fatal."  But  how  much  the  patient  is  aided  by  a  cheery  "  Good 

1  Comparative  Physiology  and  Morphology  of  Animals,  p.  83. 

2  The  Origin  of  Vertebrates.     See  also  E.  H.  Starling,  "  The  Physiological 
Basis  of  Success,"  Science,  N.  S.,  vol.  XXX,  September  24,  1909,  pp.  389-401 


250  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

morning!  You're  progressing  finely."  Physicians  have  re- 
ported to  me  that  in  many  cases  harmless  pills  or  colored  H3O 
are  just  as  effective  as  anything  else.  The  case  of  a  young 
woman  who  had  been  bedridden  for  years  was  told  me  by  one 
who  compounded  some  medicines  prescribed  for  her  relief.  She 
had  tried  every  physician  accessible  and  every  remedy  known 
to  them.  Finally  a  new  doctor  came  to  the  town.  He  asked  to 
be  given  the  case,  saying  that  he  had  a  new  remedy  which  had 
proved  absolutely  efficacious  in  similar  cases.  He  was  given  the 
case,  and  inside  of  a  month  the  young  lady  was  entirely  restored. 
He  afterward  said  that  the  medicine  consisted  absolutely  of  pure 
water  and  a  little  coloring  matter. 

Sir  Crichton  Browne1  wrote:  "The  success  or  failure  of  a 
practitioner  will  often  depend  as  much  on  experience  as  a  medi- 
cal psychologist  as  on  skill  in  simples."  Schofield  z  said  that: 
"Dr.  Rush  never  prescribed  remedies  of  a  doubtful  efficacy  in 
the  various  stages  of  acute  disease  till  he  'had  worked  up  his 
patients  with  a  confidence  bordering  on  certainty  of  their  proba- 
ble good  effects.  The  success  of  this  measure  has  much  oftener 
answered  than  disappointed  my  expectation.'  ...  In  neglecting 
the  systematic  and  scientific  employment  of  mental  influence  in 
the  course  of  disease,  medical  practitioners  throw  aside  a  weapon 
for  combating  it,  more  powerful  than  all  the  drugs  in  the  Pharma- 
copoeia." 

Sir  Thomas  Grainger  Stewart  is  quoted  by  Dr.  A.  Morrison 3 
as  saying:  "In  heart  disease  the  most  important  element  is 
rest.  Second  in  importance  is  perhaps  the  element  of  hope. 
If  a  patient  becomes  persuaded  that  he  may  recover,  that  good 
compensation  may  be  established,  he  becomes  more  hopeful 
about  himself  and  his  heart  benefits  correspondingly.  If  a 
patient  is  gloomy  and  despondent,  this  damages  the  organ  in  a 
way  we  cannot  at  present  fully  explain." 

Maudsley  4  has  expressed  a  strong  belief  in  the  influence  of 
mental  therapeutics  in  the  cure  of  disease.  He  wrote:  "Per- 

1  British  Medical  Journal,  1889,  2  :  400.  2  Unconscious  Mind,  p.  375. 

3  Practitioner,  1892,  p.  29.  *  Body  and  Mind,  p.  39. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  251 

haps  we  do  not,  as  physicians,  consider  sufficiently  the  influence 
of  mental  states  in  the  production  of  disease,  and  their  importance 
as  symptoms,  or  take  all  the  advantage  which  we  might  take  of 
them  in  our  efforts  to  cure  it.  Quackery  seems  to  have  here  got 
hold  of  a  truth  which  legitimate  medicine  fails  to  appreciate 
and  use  adequately.  Assuredly  the  most  successful  physician 
is  he  who,  inspiring  the  greatest  confidence  in  his  remedies, 
strengthens  and  exalts  the  imagination  of  his  patients;  if  he 
orders  a  few  drops  of  peppermint-water  with  the  confident  air  of 
curing  the  disease,  does  he  not  do  more  sometimes  for  the 
patient  than  one  who  treats  him  in  the  most  approved  scientific 
way,  but  without  inspiring  a  conviction  of  his  recovery?" 

A  new  era  is  dawning  in  the  utilization  of  psychological  means 
in  therapeutics.  Too  much  quackery  and  charlatanism  have 
characterized  the  attempts  down  to  the  present  time  and  as  a 
consequence  the  whole  of  psychology  has  been  discredited  and  its 
applications  to  medicine  have  been  feared.  However,  physicians 
and  psychologists  have  begun  to  take  up  the  matter  in  a  serious 
way.  Many  physicians,  without  advertising  the  fact,  are  study- 
ing psychology  and  applying  it  in  a  helpful  way  in  their  practice. 
The  most  hopeful  sign  of  its  coming  general  recognition  is  in  the 
fact  that  many  medical  colleges  have  already  made  psychology 
one  of  the  required  studies  in  the  curriculum.1  The  appearance 
of  such  books  as  Miinsterberg's  Psychotherapy  will  do  mu:h  to 
place  the  subject  upon  a  scientific  basis.  Miinsterberg  says 
that:  "Indeed  the  times  seem  ripe  for  a  systematic  introduction 
of  psychological  studies  into  every  medical  course.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  mental  research  in  the  psychological  laboratory 
where  advanced  work  is  carried  on,  but  a  solid  foundation  in 
empirical  psychology  can  be  demanded  of  everyone.  He  ought 
to  have  as  much  psychology  as  he  has  had  physiology.  .  .  .  The 
ideal  demand  would  be  that  the  future  physician  should  spend 
at  least  a  year  of  his  undergraduate  time  on  empirical  psychol- 
ogy, especially  on  experimental  and  physiological  psychology." 

1  The  writer  was  appointed  Lecturer  on  Psychology  in  the  Milwaukee  Medical 
College  in  1900.  Removal  from  the  city  soon  after  the  appointment  made  it 
impossible  to  enter  upon  ih^  work. 


252  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

He  writes  further:  "It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  mental 
factors  may  enter  into  every  disease.  The  psychology  of  pain, 
for  instance,  and  of  comfort  feeling,  the  psychology  of  hunger 
and  thirst,  of  nausea  and  dizziness,  the  psychology  of  the  sexual 
feelings,  the  psychology  of  hope  and  fear,  of  confidence  and  dis- 
couragement, of  laziness  and  energy,  of  sincerity  and  cunning- 
ness,  play  their  role  in  almost  every  sick-room.  And  if  the  physi- 
cian haughtily  declares  that  he  does  not  care  for  the  methods  of 
suggestion,  it  might  justly  be  asked  whether  he  can  be  a  phy- 
sician at  all  if  he  does  not  apply  some  suggestions;  yes,  if  his 
very  entrance  into  the  sick-room  does  not  suggest  relief  and  im- 
provement from  the  start  ?  The  introduction  of  a  serious  study 
of  psychology  is  the  most  immediate  need  of  the  medical  curric- 
ulum. .  .  .  Can  the  medical  profession  afford  to  send  into  the 
world  every  year  thousands  of  young  doctors  who  are  unable  to 
use  some  of  the  most  effective  tools  of  modern  medicine,  and 
tools  which  do  not  belong  to  the  specialist  but  just  to  the  aver- 
age practitioner,  simply  because  they  have  not  learned  any 
psychology?"  1 

Bearings  upon  Abnormal  Pedagogy. — In  educating  those  who 
are  sub-normal  or  nervous  it  is  important  to  understand  the 
correlations  between  mind  and  body.  Certain  types  of  children 
may  be  saved  much  suffering  by  rational  pedagogic  treatment. 
For  example,  night  terrors  occur  in  children  of  neurotic,  scrof- 
ulous, or  anaemic  types.  The  immediate  causes  may  be  over- 
excitement  during  the  day  from  excessive  play,  fright,  worry  over 
examinations,  indigestion,  catarrh,  ear  trouble,  diseases  of  the 
eyes  which  produce  hallucinations,  and  hosts  of  others.  Insanity 
is  very  closely  connected  with  nervous  conditions.  There  are  the 
senile  dementias  occurring  when  the  brain  undergoes  dissolu- 
tion; those  arising  from  brain  lesions,  clots  in  the  brain,  spinal  in- 
juries, and  the  like.  Then  there  are  also  several  special  periods 
of  life  when  the  mind  is  peculiarly  liable  to  become  disordered. 
The  age  of  puberty  claims  many  victims.  Clouston  has  made 
a  special  study  of  the  neuroses  and  insanities  of  pubertal  develop- 

1  Psychotherapy,  pp.  364-366. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  253 

ment.  Because  of  the  unstable  condition  of  mind  and  body  at 
this  time,  overwork  and  worry  are  especially  liable  to  produce 
insanities.  Hereditary  predispositions  to  insanity  which  have 
been  latent  but  deferred  will  usually  crop  out  in  adolescence  if 
ever.  Several  epochs  in  the  life  of  women  characterized  by 
far-reaching  physical  changes  are  frequently  the  occasions  for 
the  development  of  hypochondria,  melancholia,  hysteria,  suicidal 
manias,  and  various  other  mental  disorders.  "  Observation  of 
the  phenomena  of  defective  and  disordered  mind  proves  their 
essential  dependence  on  defective  and  disordered  brain.  .  .  . 
The  insane  neurosis  which  the  child  inherits  in  consequence  of 
its  parent's  insanity  is  as  surely  a  defect  of  physical  nature  as  is 
the  epileptic  neurosis  to  which  it  is  so  closely  allied."  ' 

Almost  all  forms  of  bodily  disease  may  be  the  exciting  causes 
of  mental  disorders.  Hyslop2  mentions  such  affections  as  indi- 
gestion, bad  teeth,  defective  mastication,  duodenal  catarrh, 
functional  perversions  of  the  liver,  spleen,  or  pancreas;  peritoni- 
tis; diseases  of  the  heart  and  circulatory  organs,  cardiac  valvular 
lesions,  phthisis,  and  many  others.  Idiocy,  epilepsy,  feeble- 
mindedness, are  probably  always  accompaniments  of  defective 
nervous  development  or  physical  malformations.  Many  crim- 
inologists  declare  that  all  criminals  are  fatally  predisposed  tow- 
ard crime  by  physical  defects.  They  claim  that  even  outward 
measurements  disclose  marked  atypical  or  malformed  features. 
While  they  probably  entirely  overrate  the  direct  correlation  be- 
tween bodily  defects  and  moral  delinquencies,  yet  there  is  a 
sufficient  basis  of  truth  to  cause  educators  to  suspect  mental 
peculiarities  if  glaring  physical  defects  are  present. 

Importance  in  Normal  Pedagogy. — A  knowledge  of  the  inti- 
mate interrelations  between  mind  and  body  is  very  important 
in  the  pedagogical  treatment  of  normal  children.  All  mental 
life  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  bodily  activity  for  expression. 
No  thought  can  be  revealed  to  others  except  through  some 
physical  manifestation.  Every  thought  tends  to  -issue  in  some 
form  of  motor  activity  and  unless  the  motor  phase  is  developed  the 

1  Maudslcy,  Body  and  Mind,  p.  68.  -Mental  Physiology,  p.  510. 


254  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

idea  does  not  come  to  completeness.  The  body  possesses  all  the 
gateways  to  the  soul  and  no  message  can  issue  except  through 
the  medium  of  bodily  expression.  Consequently,  how  important 
that  all  the  avenues  of  impression  and  expression  be  in  absolutely 
the  best  possible  working  order.  It  is  a  tacit  recognition  of  this 
interrelation  which  has  caused  so  much  attention  to  be  given  in 
recent  years  to  testing  the  eyes  and  ears  of  school-children.  It  is 
recognized  that  poor  work  is  frequently  a  result  of  sense-defects, 
often  easily  remedied. 

The  Doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas. — The  old  doctrine  of  innate 
ideas,  or  even  the  doctrine  which  assumes  the  complete  disparate- 
ness and  independence  of  mind  and  body,  when  applied  in  edu- 
cational practice  made  instruction  a  wordy  process.  According 
to  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  it  was  assumed  that  the  individual 
had  in  his  mind  all  the  knowledge  that  he  would  ever  possess. 
The  function  of  the  teacher  was  merely  to  develop  ideas  already 
in  possession  of  the  learner.  The  teacher,  according  to  Socrates, 
was  to  be  a  midwife  of  ideas.  Teaching  was  a  science  of 
maieutics,  i.  e.,  a  science  of  giving  birth  to  ideas.  Many  teachers, 
though  not  professed  disciples  of  the  Socratic  method,  still 
proceed  as  if  they  believed  the  child  could  express  ideas  which  he 
has  never  gained.  They  try  to  "develop"  ideas  which  he  does 
not  possess.  They  try  to  pump  water  from  the  well  when  it 
is  dry.  Ideas  cannot  be  "developed"  until  they  have  been 
gained,  and  in  placing  the  child  in  possession  of  ideas  it  must  be 
constantly  borne  in  mind  that  the  mind  can  never  possess  any 
knowledge  whatsoever  which  has  not  been  gained  through  sense- 
perception,  either  as  a  whole  or  in  its  elements. 

The  period  of  the  reign  of  the  doctrine  of  the  innateness  of 
ideas  and  of  the  belief  in  the  complete  independence  of  mind  from 
body,  may  well  be  termed  the  dark  ages.  Men  possessed  eyes 
and  they  saw  not.  It  was  a  deaf  age,  for  they  possessed  ears  and 
heard  not.  It  was  an  age  of  anaesthesia,  for  they  possessed  touch 
and  felt  not.  Rather  than  test  the  world  of  phenomena  by 
means  of  their  senses,  they  relied  on  tradition  and  superstition  for 
their  interpretation  of  the  universe.  Their  ancestors  had  used 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  255 

their  senses  and  evolved  theories,  crude  and  childish  to  be  sure, 
and  in  so  doing  had  developed  sense-organs  with  potentialities 
for  using  them.  But  the  educated  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
come  to  believe  that  all  flesh  is  of  the  devil  and  that  the  body 
must  be  abased  in  order  to  elevate  the  spirit.  Scholars  shut 
themselves  away  from  the  world  in  monasteries,  scourged  the 
body  and  subjected  it  to  tortures  of  every  description.  Instead 
of  nourishing  the  body  and  giving  it  exuberance  and  vigor, 
they  reduced  its  vitality  and  dulled  the  senses  through  fasting 
and  long  hours.  By  retirement  within  dingy  walls  they,  so  to 
speak,  closed  their  ears  and  eyes,  and  all  the  other  senses,  to  the 
knowledge  and  beauty  of  the  world  of  phenomena  all  about 
them.  Instead  of  drinking  in  new  knowledge  and  inspiration, 
and  subjecting  the  ideas  of  their  ancestors  to  new  tests  and  thus 
evolving  new  interpretations  and  new  facts,  blind  and  deaf  and 
anaesthetic  as  they  were,  they  merely  copied,  copied,  copied,  and 
passed  on  old  traditions  and  old  superstitions,  which  became 
more  distorted  as  time  passed.  What  wonder,  then,  that  witch- 
craft and  sorcery  were  believed  in  and  that  every  method  of 
torture  that  could  be  devised  by  disordered  imaginations  was 
visited  upon  the  unschooled  or  upon  those  who  had  broken  from 
their  mural  confines  and  through  the  evidence  of  their  re- 
enthroned  senses  had  gained  a  few  independent  ideas  for 
themselves  ? 

Middle-Age  Asceticism. — The  Middle- Age  ascetics  went  so 
far  as  to  assert  that  spiritual  development  could  be  best  furthered 
by  bodily  torture.  Consequently,  in  order  to  elevate  the  mind 
they  strove  to  devise  tortures  to  mortify  the  flesh.  We  read  of 
their  fasting,  eating  inappropriate  foods,  going  barefooted  and 
otherwise  scantily  clad  in  the  dead  of  winter,  wearing  hair 
shirts  with  the  hair  inside,  bathing  in  ice-cold  springs  in  winter, 
sitting  on  sharp  nails,  assuming  unnatural  and  extremely  un- 
comfortable postures  for  months  at  a  time,  binding  the  body 
with  weights,  living  in  filth,  going  without  sleep  and  working  all 
day  and  all  night,  etc.  St.  Simeon  Stylites  lived  for  fifty  years 
chained  to  the  top  of  a  high  pillar,  and  St.  Macarius  slept  for 


256  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

months  in  a  marsh  exposing  his  naked  body  to  the  stings  of 
venomous  flies,  in  the  misguided  notion  that  the  greater  the 
bodily  penance  the  more  exalted  the  spirit  became.  In  fact,  they 
tried  to  devise  every  possible  means  of  excruciating  torture  of 
body  in  the  attempt  to  exalt  the  mind.  To  this  pernicious  doc- 
trine of  the  relation  between  body  and  mind  can  be  traced  not 
only  the  long  intellectual  night  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  also  to  it 
may  be  directly  ascribed  the  belief  in  witchcraft,  demonophobia, 
sorcery,  and  the  superstition  that  insane  people  were  possessed 
of  evil  spirits.  Professor  Monroe1  says:  "The  virtue  of  the 
monk  was  often  measured  by  his  ingenuity  in  devising  new  and 
fantastic  methods  of  mortifying  the  flesh.  ...  All  these  forms 
of  discipline  were  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual  growth,  the  moral 
betterment  of  the  penitent :  all  these,  as  the  very  significance  of 
the  word  'asceticism'  indicates,  reveal  the  dominant  conception 
of  education  which  prevailed  throughout  this  long  period, — the 
idea  of  discipline  of  the  physical  nature  for  the  sake  of  growth 
in  moral  and  spiritual  power." 

So  long  as  the  body  was  considered  gross  and  evil  and  a  mean 
tenement  of  clay  from  which  the  spirit  should  strive  as  soon  as 
possible  to  escape,  it  was  but  natural  that  bodily  care,  and  much 
less,  culture,  should  be  considered  unworthy  objects  of  education. 
With  that  prevailing  view  of  the  mind  it  was  only  natural  that 
subjects  of  study  in  a  curriculum  were  deemed  unimportant 
in  themselves  but  were  regarded  as  "grindstones"  upon  which 
pupils  were  to  sharpen  their  wits.  Listen  even  to  Montaigne, 
in  many  respects  a  pioneer  of  sense-realism  in  education,  but 
\vho  falls  into  the  language  of  the  time  in  discussing  educational 
conceptions.  He  says:  "That  he  may  whet  and  sharpen  his 
wits  by  rubbing  them  upon  those  of  others,  I  would  have  a  boy 
sent  abroad  very  young."  Rhabanus  Maurus,  an  educator  of 
the  ninth  century,  reveals  the  ideal  when  he  says:  "Dialectic 
...  is  the  queen  of  arts  and  sciences.  In  it  reason  dwells,  and 
is  manifested  and  developed.  It  is  dialectic  alone  that  can  give 
knowledge  and  wisdom;  it  alone  shows  what  and  whence  we 

1  History  of  Education,  p.  248. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  25; 

are,  and  teaches  us  our  destiny;  through  it  we  learn  to  know 
good  and  evil." 

Present-Day  Renaissance. — Contrast  the  present  rational 
theories  with  reference  to  means  of  securing  mental  results  with 
those  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  was  not  for  lack  of  educational 
theory  at  that  time  that  such  pernicious  practices  in  education 
abounded.  It  was  rather  because  of  absolutely  false  psycholog- 
ical theories.  Ideas  were  thought  to  be  innate.  It  was  a  late 
discovery,  not  yet  wholly  accepted  in  theory,  much  less  in  prac- 
tice, that  all  knowledge  takes  its  rise  in  the  senses.  Body  and 
spirit  were  considered  at  war  with  each  other.  The  'whole  object 
of  life  was  to  debase  the  body  and  to  exalt  the  spirit.  Hence 
the  monastic  torture  and  crucifixion  of  the  body,  in  the  thought, 
sincerely  believed,  that  the  spirit  was  being  ennobled  and  fitted 
for  the  much-wished-for  time  when  it  could  free  itself  of  the 
body.  No  more  significant  educational  era  has  ever  dawned 
than  the  present,  and  one  of  the  most  important  features  is  the 
just  recognition  of  the  importance  of  properly  cherishing  the 
physical  temple  of  the  soul.  The  renaissance  of  bodily  ado/a- 
tion  will  be  writ  down  in  educational  history  as  marking  the 
most  important  mile-post  down  to  the  present.  Not  to  neglect 
the  inhabitant  of  this  temple  in  our  rush  for  physical  culture, 
not  to  apotheosize  mere  brute  force  is  the  only  caution  that 
needs  to  be  suggested.  Hence,  in  any  proper  consideration  of 
psychology  or  educational  processes  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  divorce  the  bodily  and  mental  processes. 

Because  of  the  growing  recognition  of  the  intimate  relation 
between  mind  and  body  very  great  changes  have  been  brought 
about  in  the  conditions  under  which  the  education  of  children 
is  given.  Better  school  buildings  are  being  provided  and  due 
attention  is  being  devoted  to  sanitation,  including  heating, 
lighting,  ventilation,  plumbing,  seating,  arrangement  of  corridors, 
minimizing  of  dust,  etc.  Locations  are  more  carefully  chosen, 
so  as  to  escape  unsanitary  surroundings,  noise,  and  other  dis- 
tracting influences. 

Not  only  are  bodily  health  conditions  considered  but  effects 


258  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

of  physical  surroundings  upon  the  intellectual,  aesthetic,  and 
moral  life  are  being  regarded  as  equal  in  importance.  School 
architecture,  landscape  gardening,  interior  finish  and  decorations, 
pictures,  statuary,  surrounding  views,  all  are  subjects  of  careful 
study  and  scrutiny  in  the  most  enlightened  communities.  Not 
only  is  there  a  desire  to  help  develop  sound  bodies,  but  an 
endeavor  is  being  made  to  provide  physical  surroundings  which 
will  stimulate  healthful  intellectual,  aesthetic,  and  moral  growth. 
Playgrounds  and  gymnasiums  are  being  equipped  so  as  to 
utilize  one  of  the  most  deep-seated  and  important  of  instincts. 
Intelligent  attention  is  being  directed  to  the  question  of  inter- 
missions, holidays,  vacations,  length  of  school-day  and  recitation 
and  study  periods.  Hungry  children  are  being  fed,  the  ragged 
clothed,  the  sick  nursed,  and  the  sorrowing  comforted.  Child 
labor  laws  are  rescuing  thousands  from  the  dwarfing  influences 
of  factory,  mine,  and  other  overtaxing  labor. 

Not  only  are  courses  of  study  carefully  arranged,  but  study 
periods  and  conditions,  as  well  as  recitation  periods,  are  coming 
to  be  thought  worthy  of  equal  consideration.  In  fact,  with  right 
study  conditions,  most  of  the  recitation  difficulties  disappear. 
The  eyesight  and  hearing  of  children  are  being  carefully  in- 
vestigated so  as  to  correct  as  many  defects  as  possible  and  to 
relieve  disadvantages  and  embarrassment  in  other  cases.  "The 
examination  of  any  public  school  quickly  leads  to  the  discovery 
that  much  which  is  taken  for  impaired  mental  activity,  for  lack 
of  attention,  for  stupidity,  or  laziness  may  be  the  result  of 
defective  hearing  or  sight  or  abnormal  growth  of  the  ade- 
noids. Growths  in  the  nose  may  be  operated  upon,  the  astig- 
matic or  the  shortsighted  eye  may  be  corrected  by  glasses,  the 
child  who  is  hard  of  hearing  may  at  least  be  seated  near  the 
teacher;  and  the  backward  children  quickly  reach  the  average 
level."  1 

The  objective  method  of  teaching  is  being  given  a  better 
recognition  through  provision  for  field  and  laboratory  work. 
Beginnings  have  also  been  made  in  the  better  adjustment  of  the 

1  Mtinsterberg,  Psychotherapy,  p.  189. 


CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  MIND  AND  BODY  259 

intellectual  work  to  the  possibilities  of  the  child  as  determined 
by  his  physical  and  mental  development. 

But  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  accomplished  in  these 
important  directions,  an  exceedingly  large  amount  yet  needs  to 
be  done.  Heating,  lighting,  plumbing,  and  ventilation  are  still 
far  from  perfect;  school  architecture  is  seldom  under  the  control 
of  experts  who  know  the  needs  of  the  schools;  the  health  of 
children  is  insufficiently  protected  and  promoted;  the  greatest 
ignorance  still  prevails  concerning  the  proper  nourishment  of 
growing  children;  and  a  scientific  knowledge  of  how  to  adjust 
the  curriculum  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  vast  numbers  of 
children  is  only  just  beginning  to  appear.  And  of  teaching  what 
shall  we  say?  Experts  are  few,  their  knowledge  confessedly 
limited,  and  a  teaching  profession  does  not  exist  in  America! 
But  we  must  be  optimistic,  for  there  are  unmistakable  signs  of 
progress.  Many  further  applications  of  the  law  of  psycho- 
physical  parallelism  will  receive  fuller  treatment  in  subsequent 
pages. 


CHAPTER  XI 
WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE 

Physiological  Effects  of  Exercise. — Whenever  work  is  done, 
energy  is  liberated  and  a  disintegration  of  tissue  takes  place. 
This  is  the  case  when  mental  work  is  done  no  less  than  when 
the  exercise  is  physical.  In  fact,  mental  labor  necessitates  the 
greater  expenditure  of  energy.  Hence,  "  in  the  study  of  fatigue 
it  is  the  changes  in  the  material  stored  in  the  active  cells  at  any 
one  time  that  claim  attention."  1 

The  changes  due  to  metabolism  of  the  nerve-cells  and  conse- 
quent fatigue  were  first  demonstrated  by  Hodge.  He  delivered 
some  of  the  pioneer  lectures  on  this  subject  in  1891  at  the 
University  of  Wisconsin.  He  studied  the  effects  of  exercise 
upon  the  brain-cells  of  frogs,  cats,  honey-bees,  and  pigeons. 
By  electrically  stimulating  the  peripheral  trunks  of  the  nerves 
leading  to  the  spinal  ganglion  of  the  cat,  he  was  able  to  study 
the  effects  of  varying  amounts  of  exercise  and  rest.  The  nerve 
was  stimulated  for  fifteen  seconds,  then  allowed  to  rest  forty-five 
seconds,  the  work  and  rest  periods  continuing  alternately  during 
a  period  of  five  hours.  At  the  end  of  one  hour  the  nuclei  had 
shrunken  in  volume  about  twenty-two  per  cent.  In  some  cases 
the  shrinkage  at  the  end  of  five  hours  was  fully  fifty  per  cent. 
Observations  were  carried  on  for  twenty-nine  hours,  or  twenty- 
four  hours  subsequent  to  the  last  stimulation.  Complete  res- 
toration occurred  within  twenty-four  hours.  The  length  of 
time  varied  with  different  animals.  Accompanying  the  shrink- 
age there  was  a  turgescence  of  protoplasm,  and  a  chemical  change 
occurred  as  shown  by  their  reaction  to  staining  reagents.  The 
nucleus,  nucleolus,  and  cytoplasm  of  the  cells  themselves  were 

'Donaldson,  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  311* 
260 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  261 

all  affected,  the  cytoplasm  becoming  vacuolated,  the  muscles 
first  increasing  in  size  and  then  diminishing.1 

Dr.  Hodge  studied  the  effects  of  exercise  upon  the  nerve-cells 
of  the  pigeon,  swallow,  and  honey-bee  by  examining  the  nerves 
of  those  killed  early  in  the  morning  after  a  night's  repose,  and 
others  of  the  same  colony  after  a  day's  flight.  He  was  thus 
enabled  to  discover  the  fatigued  cells  from  the  cortex  of 
pigeons,  those  from  the  antennary  lobes  of  honey-bees,  from  the 
spinal  ganglia  of  English  sparrows,  and  the  cerebellum  of  swal- 
lows. The  cells  of  the  animals  examined  in  all  cases  after 
exercise  were  found  to  be  smaller  and  of  a  darker  color  than  in 
fresh  specimens.  Other  authors  through  subsequent  experi- 
ments have  corroborated  many  of  his  conclusions.  Hodge  also 
compared  the  cells  of  aged  animals  with  those  of  young  animals 
of  the  same  species,  and  noted  that  the  cells  in  old  age  present 
many  of  the  symptoms  of  permanent  fatigue. 

Meaning  of  Fatigue. — Fatigue  is  produced  by  a  chemical 
process.  Muscular  action  increases  the  oxygen  absorbed  and 
produces  additional  carbon  dioxide.  One  of  the  principal  sub- 
stances produced  by  fatigue  of  muscle  or  nerve  is  lactic  acid. 
There  is  a  change  not  only  in  the  size  and  microscopic  appearance 
of  the  cell,  but  in  histological  appearance.  It  may  be  easily 
demonstrated  that  the  toxins  formed  in  the  blood  by  exercise 
are  important,  if  not  the  principal  causes  of  fatigue.  Mosso 
says:2  "They  are  not  so  much  poisons  as  dross  and  impuri- 
ties arising  from  the  chemical  processes  of  cellular  life,  and  are 
normally  burned  up  by  the  oxygen  of  the  blood,  destroyed  in 
the  liver,  or  excreted  by  the  kidneys.  If  these  waste  products 
accumulate  in  the  blood,  we  feel  fatigued;  when  their  amount 
passes  the  physiological  limit,  we  become  ill." 

Mosso  and  others  have  performed  experiments  to  demonstrate 
the  foregoing  idea.  By  electrically  stimulating  the  nervous 
system  of  a  dog,  tetanus  is  produced  which  modifies  the  blood 
and  gives  all  the  symptoms  of  fatigue.  If  the  blood  of  this  dog 

1  Donaldson,  Growth  of  the  Brain,  pp.  317-323. 
*  Fatigue,  p.  1 1 8. 


262  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

be  injected  into  the  veins  of  a  fresh  dog,  the  latter  will  at  once 
become  affected  \vith  all  the  symptoms  of  fatigue.  Mosso  cites 
other  experiments  in  which  he  proves  that  temporary  fatigue  of 
muscles  is  a  result  of  poisonous  accumulations  and  not  a  result 
of  the  exhaustion  of  the  substance  of  the  muscles.  The  muscles 
of  the  frog's  leg  which  have  been  fatigued  by  exercise  can  be 
restored  to  normal  contractions  by  merely  washing  (injecting) 
with  slightly  saline  water.  Mosso  makes  a  statement  which  will 
doubtless  surprise  many,  viz.:  "The  blood,  that  mysterious 
liquid  which  Moses  believed  to  be  the  seat  of  life  and  which 
Pythagoras  called  the  nutriment  of  the  soul,  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  functions  of  life,  since  we  can  remove  it  entirely 
and  put  saline  solution  in  its  place.  The  experiment  is  per- 
formed by  cutting  the  abdominal  vein  and  fastening  therein  a 
fine  reed.  Saline  solution  (0.75  per  cent.)  is  then  injected  by 
means  of  a  syringe  until  nothing  but  this  clear  liquid  is  circulat- 
ing, and  we  obtain  a  frog  which  contains  no  blood.  Frogs  in  this 
condition  can  live  for  a  day  or  two,  and  during  the  first  ten  or 
twelve  hours  they  are  difficult  to  distinguish  from  normal  frogs. 
It  is  not  possible  to  perform  such  an  experiment  upon  a  warm- 
blooded animal,  because  the  nervous  system  cannot  stand  so 
great  a  disturbance  of  its  environment."  1 

A  feeling  of  fatigue  is  nature's  warning  that  katabolism  is  in 
excess  of  anabolism,  that  waste  exceeds  repair.  It  indicates  a 
disturbed  equilibrium  in  the  machinery  of  life.  Under  normal 
conditions  this  warning  is  issued  in  time,  work  ceases,  and  repair 
and  excess  growth  ensue.  But  in  pathological  cases  the  destruc- 
tion may  go  on  until  almost  too  late  for  recuperation. 

Causes  of  Fatigue. — Bad  heredity  is  a  usual  predisposing 
cause  of  fatigue.  Normally  developed  and  well-cared-for  chil- 
dren seldom  experience  pathological  fatigue  from  reasonable 
work.  Work  under  such  conditions  induces  an  increased  blood 
supply  and  is  a  prerequisite  for  growth.  Defective  eyesight  or 
hearing,  through  the  strain  produced,  are  responsible  for  ma-v/ 
headaches  and  much  fatigue.  An  undeveloped  heart,  poor 

1  Fatigue,  p.  lo.S. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  263 

breathing  apparatus,  diminutive  cerebral  blood-vessels,  insuffi- 
cient food  or  malnutrition,  are  all  responsible  for  many  cases  of 
fatigue.  They  are,  of  course,  difficult  of  diagnosis. 

Pathological  fatigue  is  sometimes  produced  in  adults  by  over- 
work, in  children  seldom.  Dissipation  of  energies,  intemper- 
ance, and  irregularities  of  living  are  much  more  often  the  cause. 
Smith  Baker  said  '  that  injurious  results  frequently  ascribed  to 
"studying  too  hard"  can  usually  be  traced  to  something  else. 
"Much  more  frequently,  dangerous  fatigue  is  the  result  of  un- 
healthy confinement  within  doors,  or  is  owing  to  unwholesome 
shocks,  and  puzzlings,  and  confusions,  and  conflicts  of  impulses 
resulting  from  the  imposition  of  scatterbrain  notions  of  teaching 
and  discipline — imposed  much  too  fast  for  the  child  to  grow  to, 
or  even  to  comprehend.  Or,  again,  it  may  be  owing  to  a  state 
of  chronic  apprehension  and  fear  caused  by  injudicious  exercise 
of  'authority,'  largely  based  on  certain  vicious  interpretations 
of  children's  characteristics,  moods,  and  tendencies." 

Galton  wrote:2  "We  must  be  on  our  guard  against  estimat- 
ing a  man's  energy  too  strictly  by  the  work  he  accomplishes, 
because  it  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference  whether  he  loves  his 
work  or  not.  A  man  with  no  interest  is  rapidly  fagged.  Pris- 
oners are  well  nourished  and  cared  for,  but  they  cannot  perform 
the  task  of  an  ill-fed  and  ill-housed  laborer.  Whenever  they 
are  forced  to  do  more  than  their  usual  small  amount,  they  show 
all  the  symptoms  of  being  overtasked,  and  sicken.  An  army  in 
retreat  suffers  in  every  way,  while  one  in  the  advance,  being  full 
of  hope,  may  perform  prodigious  feats." 

Vitiated  air  is  a  most  prolific  cause  of  fatigue.  It  is  rare  to 
find  a  school-building  a  decade  old  which  is  not  absolutely 
inadequate  in  its  appointments  for  ventilation.  Engineering 
science  is  still  wrestling  with  the  problem  of  providing  proper 
ventilation  without  undue  waste  of  heat.  Mastery  seems  a 
long  way  off.  But  even  with  the  inadequate  facilities  for  venti- 
lation, rooms  frequently  contain  fifty  per  cent,  more  pupils  than 

1  "Fatigue  in  School  Children,"  Educational  Review,  15  :  35. 
3  English  Men  of  Science;    Their  Nature  and  Xurture,  p.  75. 


264  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ought  to  be  there  if  the  ventilation  were  perfect.  Many  teachers 
have  dull  sensibility  to  bad  air,  and  even  those  with  acute  sensi- 
bility who  remain  in  a  room  continuously  as  the  poisons  gradu- 
ally accumulate  do  not  notice  the  change  readily.  On  the  same 
principle  that  a  frog  may  be  boiled  alive  without  feeling  pain, 
provided  the  temperature  is  increased  gradually  enough,  pupils 
may  be  badly  poisoned  from  contaminated  air  without  realizing 
that  it  is  impure.  The  air  in  many  school-rooms  is  execrable. 
I  have  visited  schools  in  some  small  cities  where  the  banks  were 
the  most  conspicuous  buildings,  but  in  which  the  school-rooms 
were  fairly  reeking  with  moisture,  and  the  odors  from  bodily 
exhalations  were  sickening.  Dr.  Amy  Tanner  remarks  that 
"the  air  in  most  schools  is  heavy  from  the  first  half  hour  after 
school  opens  to  the  end  of  the  day.  Then  the  janitor  locks  in  the 
bad  air  to  be  used  again  the  next  morning."  1 

Ventilation  of  living  and  sleeping  rooms  in  the  homes  of  pupils 
is  seldom  adequate.  The  superstition  that  night  air  is  impure, 
and  the  fear  of  wasting  heat,  cause  the  majority  of  people  to 
sleep  in  rooms  with  absolutely  no  provision  for  the  ingress  of 
pure  air  and  the  egress  of  the  foul.  Fresh  air,  the  one  necessary 
luxury  that  might  be  had  in  abundance  by  the  masses,  is  bolted 
and  barred  by  them.  No  habit  could  be  of  greater  value  to 
children  than  that  of  breathing  in  deeply  and  slowly  pure  air 
to  completely  inflate  the  lungs  several  times  a  day.  A  little 
attention  to  this  will  develop  an  appetite  for  fresh  air  which  will 
not  be  satisfied  with  foul  and  insufficient  air.  Tuberculosis 
would  seldom  develop  if  living-rooms  were  ventilated  properly 
and  if  correct  habits  of  breathing  were  inculcated;  and  many 
cases  of  this  dread  disease  in  its  incipient  stages  could  be  cured 
by  simply  learning  to  breathe  properly. 

The  arrangement  of  our  American  courses  of  study  is  not 
conducive  to  economy  of  energy.  Studies  are  not  arranged  ii- 
a  psychologically  sequential  order.  The  pupil  begins  a  subject 
like  algebra,  carries  it  for  about  a  year,  considers  it  "finished," 
and  proceeds  to  geometry,  which  is  "finished"  with  the  same 
1  The  Child,  p.  42. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  265 

despatch.  History,  civics,  science,  and  the  languages  are  treated 
in  the  same  kaleidoscopic  manner.  By  such  a  method  no  habits 
of  mind  can  really  become  established.  Before  one  set  of  brain- 
paths  has  been  developed,  the  "course-of-study-tinker"  appears 
and  orders  a  shifting  of  the  scene.  Old  tracks  are  abandoned 
with  loss  and  new  ones  started  at  great  cost.  The  Germans 
have  been  far  wiser  than  we  in  the  arrangement  of  their  curricula 
so  as  to  secure  long-continued  exercise  of  the  same  activity. 
By  the  spiral  plan  (considered  elsewhere)  work  is  crossed  and 
recrossed  repeatedly  from  different  view-points.  Bonds  of  asso- 
ciation are  multiplied  until  the  thought  becomes  permanent  and 
habitual.  While  education  is  to  broaden  by  variety,  yet  we 
must  not  fail  to  understand  the  importance  of  deepening  and 
mechanizing.  This  is  no  less  necessary  in  the  most  abstract 
association  systems  than  in  learning  to  walk,  to  button  our  cloth- 
ing, or  in  memorizing  the  multiplication  table.  It  is  as  uneco- 
nomical psycho-physically  never  to  fix  principles,  laws,  and 
systems  of  thought,  as  it  would  be  never  to  mechanize  the 
processes  of  spelling,  writing,  talking,  bicycling,  etc. 

The  ability  to  vary  our  speech  to  meet  momentary  contin- 
gencies, is  no  less  the  resultant  of  habits  than  if  we  were  bound 
to  a  fixed  form  of  expression.  The  fluent  adult  orator  depends 
upon  habits  no  less  than  the  kindergarten  child.  A  larger  fund 
and  greater  powers  of  inhibition  characterize  the  former  than 
the  latter.  Royce  says  the  reactions  of  the  former  are  "as 
much  established  fashions  of  reaction,  dependent  upon  the  physi- 
cal condition  and  the  past  training  of  his  higher  nervous  centres, 
as  sneezing  and  coughing  are  dependent  upon  established  physi- 
cal dispositions  (inherited  or  acquired)  of  certain  of  his  lower 
nerve  centres." 1  All  our  reactions  are  dependent  upon  a 
multitude  of  established  nervous  habits  which  enable  us  to 
make  proper  adjustments.  Generalized  functions,  though  af- 
fording plasticity,  are  no  less  habitual.  The  law  of  habit  in  a 
real  sense  governs  higher  nervous  centres  no  less  than  lower. 
"The  higher  habits  have  their  fixed  range  of  plasticity,  the  lower 

1  Educational  Review,  15  :  212. 


266  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

their  fixed  routine."  A  fuller  discussion  of  this  will  be  given 
in  connection  with  the  study  of  volition. 

Fatigue  Signs. — There  are  various,  easily  interpreted  signs 
whereby  fatigue  may  usually  be  detected.  One  of  the  surest 
signs  is  the  decreased  efficiency  of  work.  The  child  works  less 
rapidly  or  makes  more  mistakes,  and  the  results  are  less  uniform. 
Sometimes  the  speed  is  maintained,  but  at  a  great  cost,  as  is 
shown  by  the  extra  exertion  necessary.  One  who  is  fatigued 
through  long-continued  work  or  play  is  more  apt  to  be  of  un- 
stable temper  than  when  fresh  and  vigorous.  One  who  has 
lived  in  a  family  of  rollicking,  romping,  healthy  children  readily 
recalls  their  irritability,  the  instability  and  the  explosiveness,  after 
a  long  day  spent  at  play  or  after  a  day  of  school  unrelieved  by 
proper  relaxation.  Their  condition  following  the  play  is  per- 
fectly normal  and  healthful,  but  excessive  mental  work  performed 
in  poorly  ventilated  rooms  is  a  potent  cause  of  pathological 
fatigue.  Yawning  is  a  characteristic  accompaniment  of  both 
temporary  and  permanent  fatigue.  The  yawning  is  produced  by 
anaemia  of  the  brain.  When  one  is  temporarily  fatigued,  bored,  or 
in  a  poorly  ventilated  room,  the  blood  becomes  stagnant  in  the 
small  veins  of  the  body.  Those  who  suffer  from  cerebral  anaemia 
yawn  continually.  The  yawning,  like  stretching  the  arms,  or 
massage,  restores  the  equilibrium  of  the  circulation.  When 
fatigued,  work  requiring  fine  motor  co-ordinations  is  rendered 
unusually  difficult  and  is  inaccurately  executed.  This  is  espe- 
cially noticeable  in  children  who  are  given  writing,  sewing, 
basketry,  or  weaving.  They  do  their  work  poorly,  spill  ink, 
smear  their  books,  become  inattentive,  irritable,  and  fidgety. 
Older  persons,  when  fatigued,  feel  acutely  the  strain  of  work 
when  they  have  to  do  fine  writing,  to  add  long  columns  of  figures, 
or  think  out  a  complex  train  of  thought.  The  results  may  not 
become  as  much  vitiated  as  in  children  because  of  the  greater 
power  of  inhibition  and  control.  But  often  the  suffering  is 
intense  in  accomplishing  results  under  such  conditions. 

In  temporary  fatigue  the  psychic  effects  precede  the  motor 
disturbances.  The  attention  wavers,  irritability  ensues,  mem- 


267 

ory  is  impaired.  Of  course,  in  muscular  fatigue  the  pain  in  the 
muscles  precedes  any  mental  warning.  In  neurasthenia  the 
mental  functions  give  evidence  of  impairment  oftentimes  before 
the  muscular  system  exhibits  lack  of  co-ordination.  Children 
who  are  pathologically  fatigued  frequently  manifest  their  condi- 
tion by  the  knitting  of  the  brows,  so  that  permanent  wrinkles 
ensue,  fulness  under  the  eyes  appears,  stammering  and  stuttering 
often  may  be  observed,  and  all  fine  co-ordinations  are  impaired. 
Miss  Holmes  studied  the  effects  of  fatigue  upon  school-children 
by  comparing  their  number  work  when  fresh  and  when  fatigued. 
When  greatly  fatigued,  the  work  was  both  smaller  in  quantity 
and  fuller  of  mistakes  than  when  normal.  When  slightly 
fatigued,  various  deviations  from  the  normal  were  noticed. 
Those  who  can  maintain  normal  speed  and  accuracy  in  work 
though  fatigued,  do  so  with  much  greater  effort  and  often  pain- 
fully. To  persist  under  such  conditions  means  ultimate  serious 
consequences.1 

Fatigue  produces  inattention.  Children  tire  easily  and  most 
of  their  lessons  are  apt  to  be  too  long.  A  child  of  six  becomes 
so  fatigued  with  reading  or  writing  in  fifteen  minutes  that  the 
attention  wanders  at  the  slightest  stimulus.  It  is  rare  that  a 
lecturer  on  serious  subjects  can  hold  the  attention  of  his  audience 
more  than  an  hour. 

Among  other  symptoms  of  fatigue  may  be  mentioned  loss  of 
interest,  weakened  will,  and  hypersensitivity.  In  permanent 
fatigue  hypersensitivity  develops  into  what  is  termed  nervousness, 
accompanied  by  the  apparently  paradoxical  decrease  of  power 
of  sense-perception.  Unnecessary  worry  over  trifles  and  easily 
induced  fears  are  frequent  symptoms  among  neurasthenic 
patients.  A  whole  train  of  phobias  is  known,  such  as  fear  of 
dogs,  burglars,  and  accidents,  and  fear  of  failure  in  every  under- 
taking. Diseases  of  the  will  are  usually  resultants  of  depleted 
nervous  energy.  Quack  doctors  flourish  because  of  the  thou- 
sands of  cases  of  disordered  imagination,  usually  induced  through 
deep-seated  fatigue.  A  degree  further  and  the  hallucinations  of 

1  "The  Fatigue  of  a  School  Hour,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  3  :  213-234. 


268  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

the  various  stages  of  insanity  appear.  Even  children  frequently 
suffer  from  hallucinations,  especially  at  night.  The  night- 
terrors  of  children  are  largely  troublesome  delusions  about  such 
things  as  bogey  men,  black  dogs,  and  policemen.  The  delusions 
come  at  the  end  of  the  day  when  the  energy  of  the  little  ones  is 
run  down  and  they  are  surrounded  by  the  mystery  and  the  super- 
stition connected  with  the  dark.  Sometimes  these  hallucina- 
tions extend  into  the  waking  life  to  haunt  and  terrify  the  child. 

In  most  cases  of  brain-fag  among  adults  there  is  a  morbid 
fear  of  disease.  Because  of  the  fear  of  disease  and  the  apparent 
hopelessness  of  attaining  life's  ambitions,  pessimism  overtakes 
the  patient,  leaving  him  in  the  slough  of  despond.  Diseased  will 
and  unreadiness  to  accept  responsibility  follow  rapidly.  I  have 
known  several  cases  where  interest  and  light  occupation  would 
have  been  the  means  of  cure,  but  morbid  introspection  and  fear 
of  failure  caused  the  abandonment  of  everything  attempted. 
One  man  of  superlative  physical  strength,  somewhat  overworked, 
became  so  fearful  of  impending  doom  that  he  gave  up  every 
task  he  began.  The  fears  of  the  day  increased  so  at  night  that 
the  approach  of  darkness  was  sufficient  to  throw  him  into  hyster- 
ical crying  fits.  He  talked  with  me  rationally  about  the  foolish- 
ness of  it  all,  but  while  unrested  could  not  control  himself.1 
Another  man  of  great  intellectual  acumen  and  distinction  was 
obliged  to  abandon  all  work  because  he  could  not  summon  will- 
power sufficient  to  calm  his  imagined  fears. 

Children  seriously  fatigued  are  apt  to  be  restless  at  night,  to 
grind  the  teeth,  talk  in  their  sleep,  or  have  nightmare.  Such 
conditions  are  frequently  consequent  upon  worry  about  grades 
and  "passing"  at  school,  upon  long  examinations,  too  late  hours, 
over-excitement  about  parties,  etc.  Bad  dreams  or  some  terri- 
tying  spectacle  witnessed  by  the  child  often  persist,  causing  a 
useless  expenditure  of  nervous  energy.  Stories  of  fairies,  gob- 
lins, and  spooks  may  excite  the  child  mind  abnormally,  causing 
depletion  cf  energy.  Even  over-indulgence  in  reading  imagina- 

1  Since  his  complete  physical  recovery  he  has  become  perfectly  normal  men- 
tally. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  269 

tive  stories  may  prove  a  source  of  undue  dissipation  of  energy. 
Emaciation,  pallor,  and  languor  are  not  infrequently  observed 
in  children  and  adolescents  who  do  nothing  but  day-dream. 

Effects  of  Fatigue  on  Memory. — Mosso  relates  that  in  his  own 
case  fatigue  destroys  both  attention  and  memory.  The  labor 
of  ascending  Monte  Vico  and  Monte  Rosa  so  affected  him  that 
he  says  he  remembers  nothing  that  he  saw  from  their  summits. 
"My  recollection  of  the  incidents  of  the  ascents  becomes  more 
and  more  dim  in  proportion  to  the  height  attained.  It  seems 
that  the  physical  conditions  of  thought  and  memory  become  less 
favorable  as  the  blood  is  poisoned  by  the  products  of  fatigue, 
and  the  energy  of  the  nervous  system  consumed.  This  is  the 
more  singular  in  my  case  because  I  have  a  good  memory  for 
places."  *  His  experiences  are  corroborated  by  those  of  other 
mountain-climbers. 

For  a  time  in  my  teaching  experience  I  gave  three  consecu- 
tive lectures  each  day  from  9  A.  M.  to  12  M.  These  classes  were 
different  sections  carrying  the  same  work,  and  the  lectures  were 
duplicates.  On  several  occasions  I  found  my  memory  playing 
me  false  in  the  third  hour,  while  I  had  experienced  no  difficulty 
during  the  first  hour,  and  had  improved  upon  the  work  the  sec- 
ond hour.  Mosso  writes:2  "Professor  Gibelli  told  me  that  in 
botanical  excursions  his  memory  diminishes  as  soon  as  he  begins 
to  be  fatigued,  and  eventually  he  becomes  unable  to  recall  the 
names  of  even  the  commonest  plants.  Rest  very  soon  causes 
this  phenomenon  of  fatigue  to  disappear. "  "  The  fatigue  ac- 
companying work  is  not  so  great  when  the  subject  is  working 
under  the  direct  stimulus  of  a  definite  aim,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  he  has  at  the  same  time  produced  an  increase  in  his 
amount  of  work."  3 

Experimental  Investigations. — Titchener  says  of  fatigue,  that 
"In  experimentation,  it  is  directly  dependent  upon  the  number 
of  observations  taken  in  a  single  series,  and  is  indicated  by  a 
steady  decrease  in  delicacy  of  perception  and  readiness  of  judg- 

1  Fatigue,  p.  200.  *  Ibid.,  201. 

*  Wright,  Wm.  R.,  Psychological  Review,  13  :  23-34. 


270  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ment.  It  is  characterized  by  (i)  a  weakening  of  attention,  (2) 
a  diminished  capacity  of  reproduction,  and  (3)  the  prominence 
in  consciousness  of  certain  organic  sensations."  l 

Mosso  and  several  of  his  associates  have  studied  fatigue  ex- 
perimentally with  great  patience.  By  means  of  the  ergograph, 
an  instrument  which  allows  a  single  set  of  muscles,  as  those  of 
the  finger,  to  be  exercised,  he  has  studied  the  progress  of  fatigue 
in  that  set  of  muscles.  He  has  also  studied  the  influence  of 
different  periods  of  mental  work  upon  the  amount  of  force 
available  for  the  muscular  work  upon  the  ergograph.  Smedley 
has  used  the  instrument  in  connection  with  his  child-study  work 
in  the  Chicago  schools.  O'Shea  has  given  us  some  records  of 
ergographic  experiments  arranged  by  him.2 

Various  investigators,  such  as  Griesbach  and  Leuba,  have 
tested  fatigue  by  means  of  the  assthesiometer,  an  instrument  de- 
signed to  test  sensibility  to  touch  and  pain.  Tests  in  relation 
to  fatigue  are  made  before  and  after  periods  of  physical  or  mental 
work.  The  sensitivity  is  supposed  to  be  an  index  of  the  fatigue. 
Other  instruments,  such  as  the  plethysmograph  and  the  sphyg- 
mograph,  have  been  extensively  used.  The  former  measures 
blood-pressure  and  the  latter  pulse-rate.  The  sphygmograph 
has  been  used  especially  by  Binet  and  Henri.  Inasmuch  as  all 
of  the  physical  tests  have  as  yet  yielded  such  meagre  results  and 
are  so  difficult  to  apply  in  the  school-room,  the  detailed  methods 
and  results  will  not  be  entered  upon  here.  However,  while  the 
results  are  meagre  they  are  very  suggestive,  and  consequently  a 
few  references  will  be  mentioned  which  will  indicate  to  the 
special  student  where  he  may  begin  if  he  desires  to  pursue  the 
subject  further.3 

1  Baldwin's  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology. 

2  O'Shea,  Dynamic  Factors  in  Education,  chaps.  12,  13,  18. 

3  Mosso,  Fatigue,  translated  by  Margaret  and  W.  B.  Drummond;    Binet  et 
Henri,  La  Fatigue,  InteHccluelle;   Bergstrom,  "  An  Experimental  Study  of  Some 
of  the  Conditions  of  Mental  Activity,"  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  6: 
247-274;    Griesbach,  Encrgetik  und  Hygiene  dfs  X erven-Systems  in  der  Schule, 
Miinchen,  1895,  97  pp;    Lindlcy,    "A  Preliminary  Study  of  Some  of  the  Motor 
Phenomena  of  Mental  Effort,"  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  8  :  431-493; 
Lukens,  "The  School  Fatigue  Question  in  Germany,"  Educational  Review,  15: 
246-254. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  271 

Sikorsky  tested  children  quantitatively  for  signs  of  fatigue 
as  evidenced  by  less  efficient  work  in  writing  certain  material 
from  dictation.  From  one  thousand  five  hundred  tests  involving 
forty  thousand  letters,  he  found  that  after  four  or  five  hours  of 
work  there  was  an  increase  of  thirty-three  per  cent,  in  the  num- 
ber of  errors.  Burgerstein  had  children  perform  examples  in 
addition  and  multiplication  during  four  consecutive  periods  of 
ten  minutes  each,  separated  by  five-minute  intermissions.  He 
found  that  the  number  of  single  additions  and  multiplications 
was  least  during  the  first  period,  but  there  were  also  fewer  errors. 
The  second  period  was  better  in  amount  of  work  than  the  first, 
showing  the  necessity  of  becoming  "  warmed  up."  The  number 
of  errors  was  also  larger.  The  results  in  the  last  period  were 
better  in  quantity  than  in  the  third,  showing  a  recovery.  There 
were  more  errors,  however,  than  during  any  other  period. 

Laser  tested  for  indications  of  fatigue  by  having  pupils  work 
examples  at  the  beginning  of  each  hour  period  for  five  hours. 
His  results  showed:  (i)  that  the  amount  of  work  \vas  least  in 
the  first  hour,  (2)  that  the  amount  increased  up  to  the  third  or 
fourth  hour,  but  diminished  in  the  fourth  or  fifth,  (3)  the  number 
of  errors  increased  up  to  the  fourth  hour,  but  diminished  in  the 
fifth,  (4)  the  number  making  no  mistakes  at  all  decreased  from 
the  first  to  the  fifth  hour.  Hopfner  tested  a  class  of  forty-six 
boys  of  nine  years  by  dictating  nineteen  sentences  at  intervals 
during  a  two- hour  period  of  work.  There  were  .9  per  cent,  of 
errors  in  the  first  sentence,  which  decreased  to  .6  per  cent,  in  the 
fourth  sentence,  and  then  the  increase  was  quite  regular  up  to 
6.4  per  cent,  in  the  nineteenth  sentence.1 

Dr.  Thorndike  discredits  most  of  the  theories  concerning 
fatigue  and  the  experimental  data  which  have  been  collected  in 
'studying  the  subject.  He  experimented  upon  himself,  perform- 
ing uninteresting  multiplications  at  the  beginning  of  a  day  and 
also  at  the  close  of  the  same  day,  after  a  long,  hard  day's  work. 

1  The  four  preceding  experiments  are  reported  in  Kotelmann's  School  Hygiene, 
translated  by  Bergstrom,  pp.  173-176.  See  further,  Mosso  op.  cit.,  chap.  7; 
Dresslar,  "Fatigue,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  2  :  102-106. 


272  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

He  says:1  "In  every  case  the  evening  examples  represented 
a  state  of  mind  which  had  led  the  subject  to  stop  work  on  the 
ground  that  he  was  fit  to  do  no  more.  To  start  the  work  of  the 
experiment  was  very  irksome  and  required  some  exercise  of 
determination."  His  results  led  him  to  assert  that  he  could 
do  as  much  work  at  the  close  of  the  day  as  at  the  beginning  and 
that  "we  can  feel  mentally  fatigued  without  being  so."  He 
tested  school-children  in  a  similar  manner  and  concluded  that 
their  power  of  actually  doing  work  at  the  close  of  the  day  is  as 
great  as  at  the  beginning.  He  says  that  although  the  children 
said  that  "they  were  tired  in  the  late  hours,  and  thought  that 
they  couldn't  work  nearly  as  well,  yet  these  same  children  did 
do  just  as  well  in  the  tests  given."  He  further  maintains2  that 
his  results  "prove  that  the  work  in  the  case  of  the  schools  tested 
did  not  decrease  one  jot  or  tittle  the  ability  of  the  scholars  to  do 
mental  work."  He  believes  that  "The  great  burden  of  the  child 
(and  of  many  of  us  grown  children)  is  not  doing  things  that  are 
hard,  or  that  hurt,  but  doing  things  that  are  stupid  and  sicken- 
ing and  without  worth  to  us."  He  prescribes  "good  teaching" 
as  a  remedy  for  decreased  work  apparently  due  to  fatigue, 
believing  that  it  would  cure  90  per  cent,  of  all  cases. 

Undoubtedly  much  fatigue  is  purely  imaginary,  as  Dr. 
Thorndike  suggests.  But  he  has  evidently  overlooked  a  very 
vital  point  concerning  many  cases.  Even  though  as  much 
work  is  done  at  the  close  of  a  long  work  period,  it  is  done,  as  he 
admits,  under  the  feeling  of  fatigue  and  with  great  effort.  What 
causes  the  feeling  of  discomfort  or  fatigue?  Why  the  extra 
effort  necessary?  It  is  the  exhausted  or  disturbed  condition  of 
the  nerve-cells.  The  feeling  of  discomfort  is  the  signal  that 
danger  will  ensue  unless  the  signal  is  heeded.  I  frequently  close 
an  hour's  public  address  with  greater  activity  than  I  began  it. 
My  voice  is  stronger,  steadier,  my  sentences  smoother,  and  my 
ideas  readier.  But  as  soon  as  the  lecture  closes  I  feel  all  the 
effects  of  overwork  and  exhaustion.  My  voice  becomes  so  husk)' 

1  Psychological  Review,  7  :  469,  481. 
3  Ibid.,  pp.  5<+/,  570. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  273 

that  I  lose  control  of  it  and  can  scarcely  speak  aloud,  I  feel 
limp  in  body,  and  can  only  feel  comfortable  by  lying  down  at 
once.  Sometimes  my  sleep  is  disturbed,  and  I  feel  aches  and 
pains.  Now,  what  is  this  condition  if  not  fatigue? 

Periods  of  Work  and  Rest. — No  absolute  rules  can  be  laid 
down  with  reference  to  periods  of  work  and  rest,  because  there 
are  such  enormous  individual  differences  in  this  as  in  other 
characteristics.  Some  persons  can  walk  only  a  short  distance 
without  great  fatigue,  while  others  can  tramp  all  day  without 
rest  or  experiencing  fatigue.  Some  can  do  continuous,  heavy 
physical  work,  but  only  at  a  slow  pace,  while  others  work  by 
spurts  and  then  require  rest.  Similar  conditions  obtain  in 
mental  work.  Some  men  work  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  hours 
a  day  the  year  round  without  a  vacation,  while  others  seem 
never  to  be  at  work  but  really  accomplish  astonishing  results 
because  of  the  intensity  while  occupied.  University  students 
vary  greatly  in  their  methods  and  powers  of  mental  work.  One 
spends  as  much  energy,  and  as  effectively,  in  fifteen  minutes  as 
another  in  two  hours.  The  former,  however,  has  to  Jearn  to 
rest  and  vary  his  work. 

It  is  often  maintained  that  during  the  morning  hours  far 
more  work  can  be  accomplished  than  at  any  other  period  of  the 
day.  It  is  assumed  that  the  night-time  per  se  is  responsible 
for  the  fatigued  condition  and  the  morning  hour  for  the  abundant 
vigor.  According  to  these  assumptions,  then,  would  not  the 
day-time  hours  be  the  best  for  invigoration  through  sleep  ?  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  the  best  work  is  usually  accomplished  with 
the  least  effort  in  the  morning,  after  a  night's  refreshing  sleep. 
But  it  is  also  probably  true  that  such  is  the  case  because  of 
the  sleep,  rest,  and  recuperation  rather  than  because  of  the 
time  of  day. 

The  relations  of  periods  of  work  to  periods  of  rest,  sleep,  and 
times  of  eating  are  much  more  determinative  of  fatigue  than 
is  the  time  of  day.  Those  who  work  nights  say  that  they  can 
work  equally  as  well  at  night  as  during  the  day.  Some  students 
and  writers  do  their  main  work  early  in  the  day— sometimes 


274  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

before  breakfast.  But  that  is  largely  a  matter  of  personal 
habit.  Others  do  their  very  best  brain-work  at  night — between 
eight  and  twelve  or  one  o'clock.  The  nervous  system  and  the 
mind  become  habituated  through  custom  to  functioning  in  certain 
ways  at  certain  times  and  laws  become  established.  Just  as  we 
fall  asleep  after  lunch  almost  in  spite  of  ourselves  if  we  have 
become  accustomed  to  it;  just  as  we  waken  in  almost  exactly 
twenty  minutes  if  that  has  been  the  allotted  time;  so  the  mind 
is  ready  to  work  with  a  given  momentum  and  upon  given  prob- 
lems at  certain  definite  periods.  Because  of  habituation  of  at- 
tention during  the  day-time  to  my  routine  work  and  to  devotion 
of  my  hours  of  lamplight  to  writing  and  new  work,  I  find  that  it  is 
not  easy  to  interchange.  If  I  seat  myself  during  the  day-time 
to  write  an  article,  dozens  of  routine  matters  come  unbidden 
to  my  attention  and  it  seems  as  if  my  mind  will  not  work  freely 
upon  the  new  matter  until  the  accustomed  hour.  Of  course, 
at  that  later  hour  the  disturbing  factors  of  the  day  are  no 
longer  present;  the  bright  sunshine,  the  beautiful  flowers,  or 
the  friendly  fireside  chat  no  longer  command  attention.  But 
as  I  have  repeatedly  analyzed  the  case,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  my 
whole  make-up  were  more  ready  for  particular  kinds  of  activ- 
ities at  certain  times,  previously  determined  by  habituation 
through  experience. 

According  to  our  habits  of  eating  and  sleeping,  it  is  true  that 
the  best  hours  for  school-children  are  in  the  morning  from  about 
eight  to  eleven.  This  is  especially  true  if  a  light,  though  nutri- 
tious, breakfast  follows  eight  or  nine  hours  of  refreshing  sleep. 
The  hour  preceding  lunch,  usually  from  eleven  to  twelve,  is  a 
poor  hour,  because  of  the  need  of  nourishment  and  because  of 
the  previous  work.  The  hour  immediately  following  lunch  is 
also  a  poor  hour  for  work,  because  the  blood  is  drawn  away 
from  the  head  to  the  stomach  to  promote  digestion.  The  hours 
from  two  to  six  are  favorable  for  work,  although  they  may  not 
be  so  good  as  the  morning  hours.  This  is  true  only  because 
they  are  farther  away  from  a  period  of  refreshing  sleep,  because 
the  funds  of  nervous  energy  are  more  nearly  run  down,  and 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  275 

because  of  the  cumulative  effects  of  the  toxins  formed  by  exer- 
cise. But,  as  stated  above,  whether  the  brain  and  mind  act 
readily  or  sluggishly  depends  much  upon  habit.  It  is  stated  by 
Frank  G.  Carpenter  that  Dr.  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  the  great 
inventor,  has  done  most  of  his  thinking  after  dark,  finding  that 
his  mind  works  better  when  all  is  quiet.  He  considers  the 
hours  from  midnight  to  four  o'clock  as  the  preferred  time. 
During  the  summer  months  he  seldom  goes  to  sleep  before  dawn 
and  his  hours  for  sleep  are  usually  from  four  to  eleven  in  the 
morning.  His  afternoons  are  devoted  to  business  and  social 
engagements  and  his  nights  to  scientific  experiments.  He  main- 
tains that  this  plan  is  in  no  wise  injurious  to  his  health  and  he 
prefers  these  hours  instead  of  daylight  for  work.  "  Indeed," 
says  Carpenter,  "night  and  day  are  much  the  same  to  him,  and 
when  he  is  especially  interested  in  some  of  his  experiments  he 
goes  many  hours  without  sleep,  working  on  far  into  the  day  and 
then  sleeping  for  hours  at  a  stretch  to  make  up." l  Edison  is 
said  to  utilize  the  night  hours  almost  as  much  as  the  day.  It 
would  be  easy  to  multiply  cases  to  show  that  habit  and  the 
personal  equation  are  very  large  factors  in  questions  of  work 
and  fatigue. 

Daily  School  Program. — The  daily  program  of  the  school 
should  be  so  arranged  as  to  produce  a  minimum  degree  of  fatigue 
and  also  to  place  the  most  arduous  occupations  at  the  period 
of  the  day  when  pupils  are  freshest  and  most  able  to  resist  fatigue. 
From  the  nature  of  the  subjects,  mathematics,  languages,  gram- 
mar, any  memoriter  work,  or  any  requiring  long  trains  of 
ideas  to  be  held  in  mind,  are  most  fatiguing.  It  is  not  always 
the  work  requiring  greatest  ingenuity  or  depth  of  thought  that 
tires  most.  The  psychologist  obliged  to  add  long  columns  of 
figures  used  in  his  experiments  finds  the  adding  much  more 
fatiguing  than  the  more  profound  thinking.  The  mathemati- 
cian even  finds  adding  columns  more  fatiguing  than  handling 
complex  equations.  Practice  will,  of  course,  reduce  the  fatigue 
in  adding.  But,  in  general  any  work  requiring  a  prolonged  un- 

1  Chicago  Record-Herald,  September  2,  1906. 


276  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

broken  chain  of  associations  is  fatiguing  until  paths  of  associa- 
tion become  "grooved"  as  it  were,  i.  e.,  until  habits  are  formed. 

Another  caution  which  should  be  thrown  out  is  against 
too  much  and  too  difficult  home  work.  If  pupils  below  the 
high  school  are  diligent  through  five  or  six  hours  a  day  five 
days  in  the  week,  little  home  work  should  be  exacted,  especially 
work  of  a  difficult  nature.  It  is  almost  criminal  to  require  ten- 
year-olds  to  work  out  their  arithmetic  lessons  at  night  especially 
when  the  teacher  makes  himself  a  lesson-hearer  instead  of  a 
teacher.  (And  I  am  sorry  to  admit  that  thousands  of  our 
teachers  are  mere  monitors  who  hear  children  recite.)  If  chil- 
dren are  given  any  home  occupations,  they  should  be  merely 
mechanical  operations  relating  to  principles  thoroughly  de- 
veloped in  class,  or  some  light  and  absorbingly  interesting  work. 
The  Germans  give  only  work  which  is  for  the  purpose  of  Erg'dn- 
zung  oder  Einpragung  (widening  work  already  learned  or  im- 
pressing principles  through  application).  The  best  kind  of 
subjects  for  home  work  would  be  literature,  biography,  the 
study  of  history,  travel,  or  observations  of  natural  phenomena 
requiring  easily  performed  experiments,  or  excursions.  What  a 
wealth  of  observations  might  be  made,  and  materials  collected, 
by  going  in  groups  with  the  teacher,  or  even  alone.  All  the 
fields  of  natural  science,  agriculture,  history,  geography,  civics, 
and  others,  are  open.  The  subjects  are  too  often  barren  just 
because  they  lack  this  observational  phase.  For  work  by  the 
fireside  the  literature  of  the  ages  offers  tempting  excursions. 
Instead  of  opening  up  this  field,  teachers  too  often  assign  for 
home  work  abstract  forms  and  formulas  to  be  mumbled  over. 
If  such  work  is  mastered  it  is  usually  by  the  help  of  the  parents. 

Pupils  should  not  be  allowed  to  sit  for  unduly  long  periods. 
The  monotony  causes  strain  and  fatigue  of  certain  parts  which 
affect  the  whole  body  and  the  mind  as  well.  Undue  tension 
should  never  ensue  through  excessive  formalism.  Ease  of 
posture  and  liberty  of  movement  should  always  be  allowed, 
to  the  limits  consistent  with  reasonable  order.  I  know  of 
schools  where  both  pupils  and  teachers  are  continuously  keyed 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  277 

to  the  breaking-point  over  finicky  matters  of  order.  Demerits 
are  given  if  a  pencil  drops,  a  pupil  glances  up,  looks  out  of  a 
window,  or  turns  around.  The  pupils  live  in  mortal  dread  of 
"sinning"  and  incurring  the  wrath  of  the  hypercritical  monarch. 
Watch  any  company  of  adults,  and  well-behaved  adults  too, 
and  see  if  they  comport  themselves  at  lectures,  church,  or 
teachers'  meetings  as  the  children  are  commanded  to  at  school. 

The  German  plan  of  allowing  an  intermission  between  periods 
is  commendable.  It  should,  however,  be  a  period  of  complete 
relaxation,  and  not  one  devoted  to  calisthenics  or  formal  march- 
ings. It  is  usual  in  American  schools  not  to  give  an  interim 
between  classes,  and  to  preserve  strict  silence  while  in  class  and 
also  while  passing  between  classes.  This  is  a  mistake.  Pro- 
fessor Ensign,  for  many  years  an  exceedingly  successful  princi- 
pal of  the  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  high  school,  made  it  a  practice 
to  encourage  chatting,  visiting,  laughter,  and  general  relaxation 
while  passing  to  and  from  classes.  By  this  means  the  pupils 
drafted  off  pent-up,  superfluous  energies,  equilibrium  was  re- 
stored, more  cheerful  feelings  engendered,  and  much  better 
work  secured.  Martinet  discipline  causes  the  unnatural  in- 
hibition of  many  automatisms  and  reflexes.  This  repression 
produces  worry,  fidgetiness,  and  a  leakage  of  nervous  energy. 

I  firmly  believe  that  the  majority  of  all  the  problems  of  disci- 
pline arise  from  the  unnatural  repression  to  which  pupils  find 
themselves  subjected.  The  long  rows  of  seats  and  desks  in 
which  the  pupils  must  remain  almost  as  immovable  as  wooden 
soldiers,  with  prohibitions  against  turning  around,  communi- 
cating, leaving  seats,  dropping  things,  or  even  turning  away 
from  books  to  rest  the  eyes,  all  tend  to  produce  rebellious  feelings 
and  pent-up  energies  which  must  be  given  a  chance  to  secure 
relief  by  some  means  or  other.  The  whole  plan  of  the  "study 
period"  has  been  wrought  out  without  a  knowledge  of  the  first 
principles  of  psycho-neural  laws  and  in  every  direction  counter 
to  them. 

Recuperation. — When  the  meaning  of  fatigue  and  its  causes 
have  been  set  forth,  the  means  of  treatment  and  relief  appear 


278  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

plain.  The  work  must  cease  and  some  means  be  employed  to 
restore  the  circulation.  If  a  particular  organ  or  part  has  be- 
come fatigued  through  congestion,  this  condition  must  be  re- 
lieved, the  part  irrigated  with  rich  nutriment,  and  the  equilibrium 
restored.  If  fatigue  has  resulted  from  exhaustion  of  nervous 
or  muscular  energy,  cessation  of  the  work  is  necessary,  and  rest, 
sleep,  or  nourishment  must  restore  the  worn-out  portion.  Mosso 
claims  that  the  store  of  energy  is  not  highly  specialized,  but 
rather  general,  and  hence  nervous  fatigue  means  fatigue  all  over. 

The  proverbial  statement  that  a  change  of  work  is  as  good 
as  a  rest  is  certainly  incorrect  when  applied  to  cases  of  fatigue 
due  to  depleted  energies.  The  teacher  who  requires  the  child 
wearied  with  arithmetic  to  turn  to  grammar,  simply  because  it 
is  different,  is  making  a  great  blunder  if  restoration  of  energy 
is  expected  to  result.  The  blunder  is  equally  egregious  when 
gymnastics  and  military  exercises  are  substituted.  More  teachers 
are  ignorant  on  this  point  than  on  the  preceding.  To  succeed 
in  gymnastics  demands  attention  and  will-power  of  a  high  de- 
gree, and  brain  energy  is  depleted  as  rapidly  as  in  the  study  of 
mathematics.  Nothing  but  rest,  nutrition,  and  complete  relaxa- 
tion will  suffice.  It  was  a  sorry  day  when  indoor  calisthenics 
were  substituted  for  absolute  free  play  and  relaxation  out  in  the 
open.  The  muscular  exercise,  instead  of  relieving  the  cerebral 
fatigue,  adds  another  kind  of  work  equally  fatiguing.  For  the 
purpose  of  relieving  fatigue  produced  through  congestion,  free 
play  and  the  old-fashioned  recess  have  never  been  equalled. 

A  right  understanding  of  fatigue  will  dispel  the  idea  that 
students  who  engage  in  long  hours  of  hard  manual  labor  are 
thereby  made  the  better  students,  and  will  give  a  more  rational 
view  of  athletics  and  sports.  Foot-ball  enthusiasts  are  apt  to 
advance  the  specious  argument  that  the  severe  and  prolonged 
physical  exercise  promotes  mental  vigor  and  increases  the 
amount  and  improves  the  quality  of  mental  work.  That  is 
absolutely  untrue.  The  man  who  "works"  several  hours  daily 
"playing"  in  severe  athletic  contests  has  a  lessened,  rather  than 
an  increased,  quantity  of  brain  energy  at  his  disposal.  The 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  279 

fact  that  he  sometimes  attends  both  to  studies  and  team  work 
successfully  is  due  not  to  the  increased  efficiency  resulting  from 
athletics,  but  to  the  possession  at  the  outset  of  an  unusual  com- 
bination of  mental  and  physical  qualities. 

Likewise  the  students  who  support  themselves  by  excessive 
manual  labor  or  night  work  usually  have  difficulty  in  refraining 
from  napping  in  class.  Believing  in  the  popular  superstition 
that  hard  physical  work  promotes  intellectual  activity,  as  a 
student  I  tried  to  keep  up  my  studies  during  the  summers  on 
the  farm.  I  found  farm  work  and  efficient  study  incompatible, 
and  at  that  time  felt  a  secret  twinge  of  conscience  for  my  supposed 
lack  of  moral  fibre.  I  could  neither  accomplish  much  study 
nor  maintain  an  interest  in  the  details,  although  I  was,  in  general, 
always  interested  in  study.  I  have  later  felt  a  sense  of  relief 
in  knowing  that  I  was  not  much  of  a  sinner  after  all.  Of  course, 
I  might  feel  some  approbation  had  I  been  able  to  overcome 
more  of  my  racial  tendencies  and  achieve  results  such  as  are 
credited  to  the  heroes  who  worked  hard  all  day  and  then  labored 
over  their  books  far  into  the  night  by  aid  of  the  pine  fagot  or 
the  tallow  dip.  But,  as  I  am  no  blind  hero-worshipper  and  am 
a  scientific  sceptic,  the  profane  question  will  occasionally  pop 
up  unbidden  as  to  whether  those  heroes  really  did  work  many 
nights  and  whether  they  did  really  read  much  Greek  that  way  ? 
Their  accomplishments  in  that  line  may  have  been  somewhat 
like  those  of  our  venerated  grandparents  in  spelling,  writing,  and 
ciphering.  Occasionally  an  authentic  document  is  made  avail- 
able by  which  we  may  compare  their  renown  and  their  actual 
achievements. 

O'Shea  remarks1  that:  "Brain  workers  will  probably  be 
benefited  more  by  activities  requiring  the  greater  use  of  the 
fundamental  than  of  the  peripheral  muscles.  Gymnastics  and 
games,  then,  should  not  require  too  exact  and  delicate  co- 
ordinations, since  it  would  seem  that  student  life  really  demands 
enough  of  this  sort  of  thing  in  the  prosecution  of  studies.  The 

'"Aspects  of  Mental  Economy":  Bulletin  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
p.  162. 


28o  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

cerebral  areas  controlling  the  peripheral -muscles  are  doubtless 
involved  in  thinking,  and  it  is  desirable  that  our  recreation  should 
relieve  these  areas  from  active  exercise  while  calling  others  into 
play.  Again,  it  seems  to  me  especially  desirable  that  our  amuse- 
ments should  engage  the  muscles  principally  rather  than  the 
mind.  Cards,  checkers,  authors,  and  the  like  must  be  poorly 
suited  to  the  needs  of  those  who  use  their  heads  constantly  in 
their  regular  employments.  ...  A  student's  life  economically 
planned  would  aim  to  expend  in  study  all  of  the  energies  which 
should  be  devoted  to  intellectual  activities,  while  recreation 
would  involve  motor  activities  almost  wholly." 

Mens  Sana  in  Corpore  Sano. — The  first  and  foremost  great 
aim  of  mental  dietetics  that  should  be  impressed  early  and  often 
is  that  one  long  ago  stated  by  Juvenal,  viz.:  Mens  sana  in 
corpore  sano.  Every  parent  and  every  teacher  should  under- 
stand that  the  first  business  of  the  child  is  to  become  a  good 
animal.  Childhood  years  should  be  largely  vegetative.  The 
child's  primal  inheritance  is  physical.  Big  lungs,  firm  muscles, 
an  elastic  step,  ruddy  cheeks,  scintillating  unspectacled  eyes, 
and  senses  alert  at  the  close  of  youth  are  priceless  possessions, 
with  which  a  knowledge  of  algebraic  formulas,  a  foreign  language 
or  two,  or  a  few  dates  in  history  are  not  to  be  compared. 

Permanent  Fatigue. — "It  may  be  true  that  that  age  (forty) 
marks  in  intellectual  men  usually  a  transition  or  the  point  where 
the  accumulated  losses  which  have  been  occurring  from  birth 
on  reveal  their  effects  clearly,  but  in  the  great  majority  of  men 
comparative  mental  fixity  surely  occurs  at  a  much  earlier  period. 
If  you  will  allow  me  to  wander  for  a  moment  from  the  strict 
discussion  of  our  immediate  theme,  I  should  like  to  refer  to 
what  may  be  called  the  theory  of  permanent  mental  fatigue. 
The  organic  changes  which  go  on  in  the  nervous  system  diminish 
its  pliability  and  there  comes  a  time  when  the  individual  finds 
it  exceedingly  difficult  to  bring  his  mind  into  any  unaccustomed 
form  of  activity.  How  completely  we  are  mastered  by  this 
difficulty  is  often  hidden,  I  believe,  from  our  recognition  and 
from  that  of  our  friends,  because  we  have  acquired  certain  habits 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  281 

of  activity  which  we  are  able  to  keep  up,  but  we  are  not  able 
without  ever- increasing  difficulty  to  turn  to  new  forms  of  mental 
activity,  or  in  other  words,  to  learn  new  things.  When  we  grow 
old  we  may  still  continue  to  do  well  the  kind  of  thing  which  we 
have  learned  to  do,  whether  it  be  paying  out  bills  at  a  bank  or 
paying  out  a  particular  set  of  scientific  ideas  to  a  class  of  students. 
If  we  try  to  overstep  the  limits  of  our  acquired  expertness  we 
find  that  we  are  held  up  by  this  sense  of  permanent  mental 
fatigue.  Usually  this  condition  comes  about  gradually,  but  I 
have  known,  as  I  presume  you  all  have,  several  cases  in  which 
it  has  appeared  suddenly,  where  a  man  who  up  to  a  certain 
time  was  fond  of  mental  exertion  suddenly  ceased  to  be  men- 
tally active.  We  have  probable  illustrations  of  this  in  the  careers 
of  well-known  scientific  men.  I  think  the  theory  of  permanent 
mental  fatigue,  in  connection  with  the  theory  of  gradual  decline 
.  .  .  could  be  usefully  developed  and  might  well  be  utilized 
by  the  psychologists  in  their  studies."  1 

Modern  High-Pressure  System. — With  the  increase  of  man's 
potentialities,  we  must  also  reckon  with  the  fact  of  the  multiplied 
ways  of  inciting  and  exciting  to  depletion  of  powers.  As  an 
illustration  let  us  note  the  excessive  stimulation  to  which  the 
eye  is  subjected.  In  our  present  civilization  we  have  come  to 
depend  more  and  more  upon  vision.  The  strain  upon  the  eye 
in  gaining  a  knowledge  of  the  objective  realities  about  us  has 
been  increased  a  thousand-fold  by  modern  modes  of  travel.  In 
addition  we  must  use  the  eye  to  interpret  language  symbols 
about  myriads  of  things  inaccessible  to  personal  inspection. 
Primitive  man  had  only  a  narrow  range  of  things  to  see,  and 
those  usually  at  some  distance.  Hence  he  knew  not  eye-strain 
resulting  from  the  microscopic  scrutiny  of  a  vast  ever-changing, 
kaleidoscopic  scene.  Formerly  man  could  deliberate  in  seeing 
the  few  things  within  his  range.  But  now  he  becomes  a  globe- 
trotter, compacting  into  a  few  weeks  the  view  of  scores  of  nations, 
vast  expanses  of  country,  the  collections  of  ages,  and  the  madden- 
ing activities  of  the  heterogeneous  throng.  In  a  week's  jaunt 

1  Minot,  Age,  Growth,  and  Death,  pp.  245-246. 


282  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

visiting  a  world's  fair,  present-day  man  sees  more,  hears  more, 
than  was  possible  in  a  whole  life,  a  century  ago.  Besides  these 
activities  the  eye  must  do  duty  in  reading  the  twenty-four-page 
daily,  the  forty-eight-page  Sunday  edition,  scanning  a  half- 
dozen  weeklies,  and  going  through  a  cartload  of  magazines,  to 
say  nothing  of  all  the  latest  books  which  one  is  supposed  to 
read. 

The  ear  is  equally  assailed  with  the  ceaseless  hum  of  voices, 
door-bells,  and  telephone  calls,  the  whir  of  the  trolley,  the  shriek 
and  clang  of  the  locomotive,  the  maddening  grind  of  the  sleeping- 
car  or  the  twin-screw  steamer  upon  which  we  take  our  vacation 
tours,  the  deafening  roar  of  the  factory,  the  clatter  of  galloping 
hoofs  and  the  rattle  of  wheels  over  paved  streets.  Even  at  night 
we  must  be  assailed — business  must  not  stand  still — goods  must 
be  sent  by  return  mail,  limited  trains  must  outdo  other  limiteds, 
and  everywhere  new  "records"  must  be  established.  Even  on 
Sunday  we  are  not  permitted  to  listen  to  restful  sermons — they 
must  be  such  as  to  give  rise  to  glaring  headlines  and  the  music 
must  be  of  ear-splitting  pitch. 

Significance  of  Fatigue  in  Heredity. — The  question  of  fatigue 
is  of  vast  importance,  not  only  having  a  relation  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  daily  program,  to  the  amount  of  work,  periods 
of  rest  and  recreation,  but  in  a  still  larger  way  affecting  the 
whole  life  of  a  people.  Habits  of  life  which  produce  permanent 
fatigue  of  great  numbers  of  people  may  mean  the  loss  of  place 
and  power,  or  even  the  extinction  of  nations.  Great  numbers 
of  people  in  all  civilized  countries  have  been  thoroughly  aroused 
by  the  question,  many  discussions  have  ensued,  and  much 
literature  has  been  produced.  The  Uberburdungsfrage  became 
a  national  question  in  Germany  a  few  years  ago.  As  early  as 
1886  the  Paris  Academy  of  Medicine  ascribed  a  long  list  of 
children's  diseases  to  the  fatigue  incident  to  school  life.  Physi- 
cians in  our  own  country  have  sounded  a  warning  not  only 
against  over-pressure  in  schools  but  against  all  forms  of  headlong 
rush  and  over-excitement  which  seem  to  be  over-stimulating  and 
devitalizing  our  American  life.  "  Americanitis"  may  be  or  may 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  283 

become  more  than  a  jest.  Hereditary  "laziness"  would  not  be 
an  impossible,  but  a  probable,  ultimate  consequence  of  a  few 
generations  of  living  at  an  exhausting  pace. 

We  are  wont  to  think  of  the  invention  of  machinery  as  reliev- 
ing many  from  toil  and  fatigue.  Mosso  comments  upon  this 
idea  in  a  way  which  certainly  suggests  the  necessity  of  regulating 
and  reducing  the  hours  of  enslaving  toil  from  tending  certain 
kinds  of  machinery.  He  writes:1  "One  very  quickly  per- 
ceives, however,  that  those  machines  are  not  made  to  lessen 
human  fatigue,  as  poets  were  wont  to  dream.  The  velocity  of 
the  flying  wheels,  the  whirling  of  the  hammers,  and  the  furious 
speed  at  which  everything  moves,  these  things  tell  us  that  time 
is  an  important  factor  in  the  progress  of  industry,  and  that 
here  in  the  factory  the  activity  of  the  workers  must  conquer  the 
forces  of  nature.  Beside  these  roaring  machines  are  seen  half- 
naked  men,  covered  with  sweat,  hurriedly  pursuing  enormous 
weights,  wrhich  whirl  round  as  if  a  mysterious  hand  were  raising 
them.  The  hiss  of  the  steam,  the  rattling  of  the  pulleys,  the 
shaking  of  the  joints,  the  snorting  of  these  gigantic  automata, 
all  warn  us  that  they  are  inexorable  in  their  motion,  that  man  is 
condemned  to  follow  them  without  a  moment's  rest,  because 
every  minute  wasted  consumes  time  which  is  worth  money, 
seeing  that  it  renders  useless  the  fuel  and  the  movement  of 
these  colossi.  The  least  distraction,  the  least  mistake  may 
drag  the  workers  beneath  the  grinding  teeth  of  the  wheels;  and 
the  imagination  recoils  horror-struck  before  the  mutilations,  the 
deaths,  with  which  these  monsters  punish  the  slightest  careless- 
ness, the  slightest  hesitation  on  the  part  of  those  who  direct 
them."  All  this  produces  a  tension  and  strain  which  must 
eventually  sap  the  very  life-energy  from  the  strongest  and  con- 
tribute to  race  deterioration.2 

Health  of  School-Children. — Paul  wrote:  "What?  know  ye 
not  that  your  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  in 

1  Fatigue,  p.  171. 

3  See  Bulletin  30  of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred  on  National  Health.  Being 
a  Report  on  National  Vitality,  prepared  by  Prof.  Irving  Fisher,  pp.  44-48. 


284  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

you?"  *  So  well  established  is  the  idea  that  a  sound  mind  can 
be  developed  only  in  a  sound  body,  that  very  properly  a  large 
share  of  attention  is  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  health 
of  school-children.  Splendid  efforts  have  been  made  to  provide 
commodious  buildings,  hygienically  heated,  lighted,  and  venti- 
lated. In  enlightened  communities  the  school-house  site  is 
chosen  in  the  most  healthful  location  possible,  and  the  grounds 
are  ample  for  plays,  sports,  and  recreations.  Athletics,  games, 
out-door  exercises,  and  gymnasium  work  are  encouraged,  utilized 
to  correct  defective  or  abnormal  tendencies,  and  in  manifold 
ways  made  to  contribute  to  bodily  tone  and  vigor  as  well  as  to 
provide  incentives  for  school  attendance. 

Through  the  awakening  of  the  public  to  a  consciousness  of 
the  importance  of  bodily  health,  not  only  because  of  its  effect 
upon  the  individual,  but  on  account  of  its  far-reaching  racial 
effects,  many  reforms  in  school  conditions  are  being  secured. 
Buildings  are  being  constructed  in  accordance  with  the  best  ideas 
of  heating,  lighting,  plumbing,  color  of  walls,  etc.  Greater 
precautions  are  taken  to  secure  building-sites  on  well-drained 
ground,  removed  from  the  disturbing  noises  and  dangers  in 
congested  districts.  Play-grounds  are  no  longer  considered  lux- 
uries by  enlightened  citizens.  In  New  York  costly  mercantile 
buildings  in  the  heart  of  the  most  thickly  populated  districts  are 
torn  down  to  make  room  for  play-grounds.  The  gymnasium 
is  coming  to  be  considered  as  necessary  as  the  library  or  the 
laboratory.  School  baths  are  being  provided  at  public  expense, 
and  the  paternalism  of  the  state  goes  so  far  in  some  cases  as  to 
require  the  pupils  to  take  them.  Physical  culture  is  given  a 
regular  place  in  the  required  list  of  exercises  in  many  schools 
and  colleges.  The  diet  and  nutrition  of  school-children  is 
properly  made  an  item  of  consideration.  The  mid-day  lunch 
is  often  furnished  on  the  school  premises  and  is  prepared  ac- 
cording to  the  most  hygienic  principles.  In  not  a  few  instances 
the  public  provides  food  for  indigent  children  who  come  to  school 
so  ill  nourished  that  effective  mental  work  is  an  impossibility. 

1  i  Cor.  6  :  19. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  285 

Dr.  Hall  has  said: 1  "  A  ton  of  knowledge  bought  at  the  cost 
of  an  ounce  of  health,  which  is  the  most  ancient  and  precious 
form  of  wealth  and  worth,  costs  more  than  its  value.  Better 
Tolstoi's  kind  of  liberty,  or  the  old  knightly  contempt  of  pen 
and  book  work  as  the  knack  of  craven,  thin-blooded  clerks, 
better  idyllic  ignorance  of  even  the  invention  of  Cadmus,  if  the 
worst  that  the  modern  school  now  causes  must  be  taken  in 
order  to  get  the  best  it  has  to  give.  Sooner  or  later  everything 
pertaining  to  education,  from  the  site  of  the  building  to  the 
contents  of  every  text-book,  and  the  methods  of  each  branch  of 
study,  must  be  scrutinized  with  all  the  care  and  detail  at  the 
command  of  scientific  pedagogy  and  judged  from  the  stand-point 
of  health.  What  shall  a  child  give  in  exchange  for  his  health, 
or  what  shall  it  profit  a  child  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  of 
knowledge  and  lose  his  own  health?" 

Medical  Inspection  of  Schools. — Medical  inspection  of  schools 
should  become  universal.  The  hygienic  conditions  of  the  sur- 
roundings under  which  children  work  and  play  should  be  regu- 
larly inspected.  The  frequent,  appalling  consequences  of  un- 
necessary contagion  should  be  checked.  Where  regular  physi- 
cians have  been  employed  the  wisdom  of  the  measure  has  been 
demonstrated.  With  the  congestion  of  population  in  cities  the 
need  for  medical  inspection  of  schools  becomes  greater.  Statis- 
tics are  almost  overwhelming  in  the  appeal  they  make  to  us 
for  the  medical  inspection  of  schools.  During  the  year  1895,  in 
Boston,  the  medical  inspector  made  16,790  examinations.  Of 
those  examined,  10,737  were  really  ill.  This  indicates  that 
not  many  needless  examinations  were  conducted.  Among  those 
examined,  2,041  were  too  ill  to  remain  even  for  the  day.  The 
number  of  cases  of  contagious  diseases  which  should  have  been 
recognized  at  home  was  something  appalling.  There  were  77 
cases  of  diphtheria,  28  of  scarlet  fever,  47  of  scabies,  116  of 
measles,  33  of  whooping  cough,  28  of  chicken-pox,  47  of  mumps, 
8  of  congenital  syphilis.  The  results  of  inspection  in  Chicago 
revealed  similar  conditions.  During  the  four  months  ending 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  2  :  7. 


286  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

April  30,  1900,  there  were  76,805  examinations  made,  and 
4,539  pupils  were  excluded  from  school.  Of  these  170  were 
afflicted  with  diphtheria;  scarlet  fever  claimed  401;  measles, 
648;  whooping  cough,  55;  chicken-pox,  670;  tonsilitis,  689; 
mumps,  1,160;  purulent  sore  eyes,  55;  impetigo,  193;  pedicu- 
losis, 241;  ringworm,  76;  eczema,  48;  other  diseases,  133. 

"In  the  Chicago  schools,  during  the  first  six  months  of  this 
year  (1909),  249,840  children  were  examined,  and  32,159  were 
temporarily  excluded  because  of  contagious  diseases.  There 
were  72,061  examined  for  physical  defects,  and  nearly  38,000- 
more  than  one-half — were  found  defective — the  teeth  were  de- 
fective in  more  than  26,000  (i  in  every  3) ;  the  tonsils  in  more 
than  17,000  (i  in  every  4);  the  vision  in  nearly  14,000  (i  in 
every  5),  etc."  1 

And  all  the  children  thus  afflicted  were  sitting  by  the  side  of 
other  children,  spreading  their  contagion  broadcast!  All  were 
sent  by  their  parents,  who,  according  to  extreme  individualists, 
should  not  have  their  rights  interfered  with.  If  public  investi- 
gation of  school  conditions  and  the  isolation  of  such  cases  means 
paternalism,  then  give  us  more,  yea,  infinitely  more  paternalism! 
The  great  prevalence  of  physical  and  moral  contagion  to 
which  little  children  are  exposed  in  our  public  schools  makes 
thinking  parents  hesitate  before  sending  their  children  where 
any  day  they  may  become  inoculated  with  germs  that  may 
result  in  physical  or  moral  diseases  of  the  most  loathsome  kind. 
The  great  number  of  epidemics  of  measles,  scarlet  fever,  mumps, 
whooping  cough,  etc.,  that  annually  find  their  centre  of  dissemi- 
nation in  a  school-room,  where  the  germs  have  been  carried 
by  children  from  homes  oftentimes  entirely  ignorant  of  and  in- 
different to  the  simplest  laws  of  health,  should  not  fail  to  impress 
us  with  the  desirability  of  checking  them.  If  Edward  Bok's 
starements  are  true,  and  they  are  doubtless  true  in  the  main, 
that  fifty  thousand  children  are  annually  made  nervous  wrecks, 
and  if  parents  are  continually  lamenting  the  nervous  break- 
downs of  their  children,  there  is  certainly  cause  for  alarm. 

1  Votaw,  "Moral  Training  in  the  Public  Schools,"  Biblical  World,  34  :  298. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  287 

While  Mr.  Bok  is  wrong  in  charging  all  to  the  public  schools, 
he  is  undoubtedly  correct  as  to  results.  The  schools  are  not 
primarily  to  blame  for  the  nervous  prostrations  and  early  deaths 
from  consumption.  "The  sins  of  the  fathers,"  dissipation  of 
energy  in  late  parties,  insufficient  sleep,  insufficient  and  improper 
food,  lack  of  exercise,  long  hours  at  the  piano  instead  of  in  the 
kitchen  or  at  play,  the  curses  imposed  by  fashionable  but 
murderous  costume,  the  deadly  microbes  gathered  up  and 
carried  home  by  the  mother's  ultra-fashionable  skirts  sweeping 
our  filthy  sidewalks,  the  demands  made  by  foolish  parents  that 
children  constitutionally  weak  do  all  that  the  stronger  neighbor 
children  do,  the  outside  music,  the  extra  work  in  the  store,  these 
and  many  other  causes  for  which  parents  themselves  are  to 
blame  are  more  frequently  the  cause  of  pulmonary  diseases  and 
nervous  collapse.  But  setting  aside  the  causes,  the  distressing 
fact  remains  that  these  pitiable  cases  are  in  school,  and  many 
parents  have  neither  the  knowledge  nor  the  good  sense  to  pre- 
vent the  blighting  conditions  nor  to  remedy  the  evils  when  under 
way.  It  then  remains  for  the  school,  as  a  guardian  and  pro- 
moter of  manhood  and  womanhood,  to  protect  against  evil 
tendencies  and  combat  disease  and  contagion. 

In  villages  and  small  towns  the  school  physician  might  be  the 
health  officer  of  the  town.  Such  a  position  would  give  him 
something  of  exceeding  importance  to  do.  Instead  of  going 
around  town  tacking  up  diphtheria  and  scarlet-fever  signs 
after  the  disease  had  been  spread  broadcast  and  the  schools 
closed  for  a  month's  vacation,  he  could  be  extremely  useful  in 
preventing  the  spread  of  disease.  By  combining  the  duties  of 
the  health  officer  and  the  school  inspector  very  little  additional 
cost  would  be  involved,  and  no  great  amount  of  persuasion 
would  be  necessary  to  inaugurate  the  plan.  The  plan  is  feasible 
because  it  has  been  tried  successfully.  Large  cities  can  well 
afford  to  employ  one  or  more  experts  to  devote  all  their  time  to 
the  psycho-pathological  work.  Chicago  employs  an  expert  con- 
sulting psychologist,  besides  fifty  or  more  physicians  who  devote 
part  of  their  time  to  these  extremely  important  preventive  and 


288  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

alleviative  measures.  In  the  future — which  I  believe  is  dawn- 
ing— let  us  hope  that  the  appropriations  for  reformatories  and 
reformatory  measures  may  be  materially  diminished,  while  for 
formative  and  preventive  measures  they  may  be  infinitely  in- 
creased. 

There  is  a  world-wide  movement  to  secure  medical  inspection 
of  schools  and  better  school  sanitation.  European  countries, 
especially  Switzerland,  have  led  in  this  altruistic  movement. 
However:  "At  present  medical  inspection  is  the  exception,  rather 
than  the  rule.  Only  70  cities  in  the  United  States,  outside  of 
Massachusetts,  and  32  cities  and  321  towns  in  Massachusetts, 
have  systems  more  or  less  complete.  New  York  employs  150 
physicians,  who  visit  each  public  school  once  a  day  to  examine 
children  set  aside  for  that  purpose  by  the  teacher.  In  Provi- 
dence a  fresh-air  school  for  children  suffering  from  tuberculosis 
has  been  established."  1 

In  Chicago,  during  the  first  six  months  of  the  year  1909,  "the 
school  nurses  have  been  busy  looking  after  the  diseased  or 
defective  pupils.  They  have  visited  the  homes  of  45,000  pupils, 
to  arrange  that  the  children  may  be  properly  taken  care  of,  and 
under  the  direction  of  physicians  have  actually  treated  more 
than  23,000  children.  The  school  authorities  find  that  many 
parents  do  not  give  attention  and  care  to  the  health  of  the 
children — their  defects  of  teeth,  vision,  hearing,  breathing,  or 
nutrition  are  neglected,  and  as  a  consequence  the  children  are 
left  to  struggle  along  with  severe  handicaps  if  not  with  actual 
pain.  So  the  public  schools  have  assumed  the  enormous  task 
of  securing  health  for  as  many  of  the  boys  and  girls  as  possible. 
This  means  also  that  the  school  buildings  and  the  methods  of 
instruction  shall  be  in  the  best  sense  hygienic,  and  that  the  pupils 
as  they  progress  through  the  school  years  shall  be  taught  health 
in  an  all-round  and  effective  way.  The  physical  health  which 
is  thus  built  up  makes  for  higher  attainment  both  intellectually 
and  morally."  2 

'Fisher,  op.  cit.,  p.  8. 
3  Votaw,  loc.  cit. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  289 

The  Inflexible  Graded  System. — One  point  remains,  to  be 
noted.  If  these  nervous  breakdowns  accompanying  school  work 
are  to  be  successfully  resisted,  the  school  grade  in  its  extreme 
inflexibility  must  go.  Parents  will  always  want  their  John  and 
Mary  to  be  at  exactly  the  same  point  in  their  work  and  to  carry 
exactly  the  same  amount  of  work  as  their  neighbor's  John  and 
Mary.  Custom  is  a  mighty  force  which  rules  the  world.  What 
"they"  do,  what  "they"  say,  are  among  the  most  constantly 
operative  stimuli  in  an  adult's  life.  Now  if  the  superintendent 
and  school  physician  could  say  that  John  should  rest  for  three 
weeks  or  that  he  should  take  only  two  of  the  four  studies,  which 
he  could  do  if  the  grades  were  not  the  gods  to  be  appeased;  if 
John  could  graduate  a  few  weeks  later  when  he  individually 
had  completed  the  work,  he  could  work  along  calmly  and 
without  detriment.  The  school  grade,  so  dear  to  the  mechanical 
teacher,  is  a  Juggernaut  under  whose  ever-grinding  wheels  are 
annually  crushed  thousands  of  innocent  children  whose  cries 
go  up  to  heaven  in  a  wail  against  this  wholesale  sacrifice  of  life 
and  individuality. 

Sleep  and  Efficiency. — Sleep  is  an  important  factor  in  the 
development  of  the  child  and  the  youth,  to  which  inadequate 
consideration  has  been  given  by  parents.  Dr.  Hall  has  said 
that  no  child  should  be  allowed  to  go  to  school  without  having 
had  nine  hours  of  sleep  and  a  good  breakfast.  In  the  average 
home  little  attention  is  given  to  the  amount  of  sleep  of  the 
children,  and  the  conditions  under  which  it  is  taken.  Without 
doubt  a  large  percentage  of  the  cases  of  nervous  breakdowns 
reported  among  high-school  pupils  could  be  traced  to  irregular, 
inadequate,  and  unrefreshing  sleep.  Dr.  Francis  Warner,1  a 
noted  authority  on  child  study  and  on  nervous  diseases,  records 
with  approval  the  following  tabulation  furnished  by  Dr.  Clement 
Dukes  of  the  desirable  amounts  of  work  and  sleep  for  the  differ- 
ent ages  of  childhood  and  youth: 

1  The  Nervoiis  System  of  the  Child,  p.  124. 


290 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


TABLE  SHOWING  DESIRABLE  NUMBER  OF  HOURS  OF  WORK  AND 
SLEEP  AT  DIFFERENT  AGES 


AGE 

HOURS  OF  WORK  PER 
WEEK 

HOURS  OF  SLEEP  PER 
NIGHT 

5-6 

6 

13! 

6-7 

9 

13 

7-8 

12 

i2j 

8-9 

15 

12 

9-10 

2O 

II* 

11-12 

25 

II 

13-14 

35 

IO 

14-15 

40 

9* 

15-17 

45 

9 

17-19 

50 

8J 

Defective  Eyesight.— So  important  are  the  senses  of  sight  and 
hearing  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  so  frequently  are 
these  senses  impaired,  that  a  special  brief  section  will  be  devoted 
to  each.  References  will  be  given  for  the  guidance  of  those  who 
need  to  investigate  further.  Persons  blessed  with  sight  gain  a 
vast  range  of  ideas  which  are  absolutely  denied  to  the  blind. 
Primarily  all  our  ideas  of  light  and  darkness,  colors  and  shades, 
with  all  that  these  mean  in  acquiring  real  ideas  of  the  world 
about  us,  and  all  our  ideas  of  drawing  and  painting,  are  depend- 
ent upon  sight.  Form  and  size  also  are  largely  determined  by 
visual  signs.  Helen  Keller,  blind  through  life,  can  never  know 
color,  can  never  understand  painting  and  drawing  as  the  seeing 
do.  All  her  ideas  of  form  and  size  are  gained  through  touch,  and 
color  can  be  only  a  word  with  her.  Newspaper  accounts  have 
credited  her  with  real  knowledge  of  light  and  color,  but  this 
is  all  the  fiction  of  some  newspaper  writer's  inexact  thinking. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  even  to  suggest  the  importance  of  good 
sight  as  a  means  of  knowledge  getting  and  of  enjoyment.  Every 
one  who  sees  appreciates  it  in  a  vague  way,  but  only  those  who 
have  become  blind  after  experiencing  the  advantages  and  joys 
of  sight  really  appreciate  it  to  the  full  limit.  Not  only  are  the 
blind  deprived  of  certain  cardinal  facts,  but  their  whole  brain 
and  mental  development  suffer  therefrom.  The  lobe  of  sight 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  291 

in  the  brain  of  Laura  Bridgman  was  found  to  be  much  thinner 
and  less  well  developed  than  the  other  lobes  of  her  brain,  and  less 
developed  than  the  corresponding  lobes  in  normal  individuals. 

Recent  investigations  have  revealed  the  fact  that  many  pupils 
fail  to  do  good  work  because  of  defective  sense-organs.  Many 
persons  are  afflicted  with  defective  eyesight  who  are  not  aware 
of  it.  Color-blindness  is  seldom  discerned  by  the  one  afflicted 
until  tested.  Having  never  known  any  different  perception  of 
the  world  it  seems  to  him  the  natural  condition.  Who  can  tell 
the  number  of  railroad  wrecks,  due  to  ignorance  of  this  defect, 
which  occurred  before  scientific  tests  were  applied  ?  While  the 
defect  causes  no  special  inconvenience  in  ordinary  pursuits, 
how  absolutely  essential  it  is  in  railroading!  In  occupations 
such  as  painting,  millinery,  dressmaking,  selection  of  dry  goods, 
etc.,  many  failures  might  be  traced  to  color-blindness.  Because 
of  other  visual  defects,  how  many  children  have  been  dubbed 
dunces  in  reading  when  they  miscalled  words  or  were  slow  in 
making  out  new  words  ?  The  near-sighted  child  fails  to  see  the 
blackboard  and  misses  much  that  children  with  normal  vision 
get.  Headaches,  nervous  irritability,  and  many  other  defects 
are  often  due  to  astigmatism,  weak  eye  muscles,  or  other  sense 
defects.  A  case  came  to  my  notice  recently  of  a  senior  girl  in 
the  high  school  who  was  said  to  be  threatened  with  nervous 
prostration.  Her  eyes  were  examined,  a  bad  case  of  astigma- 
tism discerned,  glasses  fitted,  and  the  girl  returned  to  school  in 
the  best  of  health. 

Prevalence  of  Defects. — Defective  vision  is  undoubtedly  much 
more  prevalent  among  the  uneducated  than  some  suppose. 
Ordinary  occupations  do  not  reveal  the  defects  and  tests  are  not 
made,  hence  we  erroneously  assume  that  the  defects  do  not 
exist.  But  it  is  also  true  that  civilization  is  making  demands 
upon  the  eye  which  tend  to  produce  deterioration.  This  is 
especially  true  because  hygienic  laws  are  unknown  or  unheeded. 
Badly  lighted  homes,  school-houses,  and  business  establish- 
ments are  responsible  for  much  suffering  which  the  observance 
of  hygienic  conditions  would  obviate.  School  life  is  particu- 
larly hard  on  the  eyesight.  Cohn  states  that  in  twenty-four 


2Q2 


PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 


gymnasien  and  realschulen,  containing  nearly  ten  thousand 
pupils,  in  sexta  (the  lowest  class),  twenty- two  per  cent,  were 
myopic,  while  in  prima  (the  highest  class),  fifty-eight  per  cent, 
were  afflicted. 

Kotelmann  says:1  "Shortsightedness  is  a  defect  developed 
by  civilization,  since  it  is  never  found  among  savage  tribes.  I 
have  examined  a  great  many  Lapps,  Calmucks,  Patagonians, 
Nubians,  Somali,  and  Singhalese,  but  I  have  never  found  a 
single  near-sighted  person,  either  among  the  children  or  the 
adults.  Myopia  did  hot  exist  in  New  Zealand  till  it  appeared 
among  the  natives  after  the  introduction  of  civilization." 
Myopia,  as  previously  noted,  is  more  prevalent  among  civilized 
peoples  than  among  savages.  It  also  increases  from  childhood 
to  maturity.  While  much  defective  eyesight  can  be  directly 
traced  to  heredity,2  school  work  unquestionably  is  responsible 
for  its  steady  increase  with  the  advancing  grades  of  school  life. 
The  following  table,  taken  from  Kotelmann's  School  Hygiene, 
represents  typical  conditions  in  German  gymnasien: 

TABLE  SHOWING  PERCENTAGE  OF  CASES  OF  DEFECTIVE  VISION 
IN  THE  DIFFERENT  GRADES  OF  SOME  GERMAN  SCHOOLS 


CLASSES 

a 

8 
1 

& 

3 

i 

.g 

3 

Ja 

rt 

t 

O 

E? 

3 

.a 

s> 

3 

_^ 

3 

x 

S 

^ 

rt 

tc 

^ 

•a 

T3 

_-  o 

E 

a 

M 

bo 

O 

.— 

^ 

oj 

C 

n 

rt  "^ 

« 

a 

_ 

W 

S 

M 

ta 

s 

S 

S 

Sexta  (lowest)  

19 

5 

23 

14 

O 

16 

2O 

17 

23 

23 

29 

Quinta  

16 

2C 

21 

IO 

20 

21 

T  C 

27 

27 

2/1 

Quarta  

1A 

14 

•32 

4C 

21 

20 

12 

42 

Untertertia  

IQ 

co 

4O 

"6 

CT 

44 

7  7 

47 

6? 

46 

Obertertia  

ir 

24 

CO 

4O 

10 

74 

44 

41 

47 

16 

Untersekunda  

40 

34 

58 

48 

47 

42 

54 

53 

56 

58 

Obersekunda  

4O 

40 

rg 

18 

C.4 

71   i 

C4 

18 

rfi 

rg 

71 

Prima  

41 

4"? 

47 

fir 

AO 

CQ 

7O 

^r 

co 

Oberprima  (highest) 

41 

5° 

47 

61 

5° 

60 

62 

66 

70 

75 

5° 

1  School  Hygiene,  p.  246;    English  translation  by  J.  Bergstrom. 
*  Cohn,  Hygiene  des  Auges,  p.  278. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  293 

Myopia  is  a  condition  of  the  eye  in  which  either  the  eye- 
ball is  too  elongated  or  the  lens  is  too  convex.  In  either  case 
the  rays  of  light  are  brought  to  a  focus  in  front  of  the  retina. 
Only  near  objects  can  be  seen  distinctly.  Concave  glasses 
help  to  correct  the  defect. 

Tests. — Because  of  the  alarming  prevalence  of  eye  defects 
among  school  children,  the  teacher  should  be  instructed  in 
methods  of  testing  the  sight.  The  purpose  is  not  to  assume 
the  role  of  physician,  but  to  discover  disturbances  and  to  have 
serious  cases  reported  to  the  physician.  Pronounced  defects 
should  be  readily  observed  by  the  alert  teacher  without  the  aid 
of  specially  devised  tests.  If  a  pupil  squints,  habitually  holds 
the  book  too  near  the  face,  wrinkles  the  brow,  complains  of 
headache,  or  mispronounces  words  in  reading,  trouble  may  be 
suspected.  Such  pupils  should  be  watched  more  closely  and 
questioned  concerning  their  own  knowledge  of  the  case.  More 
accurate  tests  should  be  applied  in  all  cases  that  seem  abnormal. 
The  simplest  test  is  made  by  using  the  Snellen's  Test  Letters. 
These  consist  of  letters  of  varying  sizes  (see  illustration  below), 
which  should  be  plainly  seen  by  the  normal  eye  at  the  distances 
indicated  on  the  cards.1 

SNELLEN'S  TEST  LETTERS 

D      O       B       R       K       5       6 

Should  be  seen  easily  by  the  normal  eye  at  a  distance  of  about  three  metres 

or  ten  feet. 

Still  better  than  the  test  letters  are  the  Cohn  Test  Types,  of 
which  the  accompanying  are  illustrations.  These  are  especially 
desirable  because  with  letters  or  figures  much  guessing  is  possi- 
ble. A  single  element  of  a  letter  or  figure  even  indistinctly 
seen  may  be  sufficient  to  suggest  the  entire  character.  With 
Cohn's  types  no  guessing  is  possible,  and,  moreover,  children 
who  are  unable  to  read  may  be  tested : 

1  These  cards  arc  inexpensive  and  may  be  secured  at  the  Mclntosh  Battery 
and  Optical  Company,  521-531  Wabash  Ave.,  Chicago. 


294  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

CORN'S  TEST  TYPES 

E  3  m  m  iii  E  iii 

Should  be  seen  easily  by  the  normal  eye  at  a  distance  of  about  five  metres  or 

sixteen  feet. 

The  mechanical  make-up  of  books  is  a  very  important  con- 
sideration. Only  the  plainest  type  should  be  used.  The  letters 
should  be  large  enough  to  be  easily  seen,  and  the  spacing  between 
letters  and  lines  should  not  induce  fatigue.  A  cursory  observa- 
tion will  reveal  to  the  thoughtful  person  whether  the  page  is 
desirable  or  not.  A  few  suggestions  will,  however,  be  made. 
The  type  of  school-books  for  the  first  grade  should  be  at  least 
2.6  mm.  high,  and  the  width  of  leading  between  lines  4.5  mm., 
as  shown  in  the  following: 

"Jack  and  Jill  went  up  the  hill, 
To  get  a  pail  of  water. 
Jack  fell  down  and  broke  his  crown, 
And  Jill  came  tumbling  after." 

It  would  be  still  better  if  the  print  read  by  first  grade  pupils 
were  as  large  and  legible  as  the  following  specimen: 

Pussy  -  cat ,   Pussy  -  cat , 
Where  have  you  been? 
I've  been  to  London, 
To  see  the  queen." 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  295 

Books  used  in  the  second  and  third  grades  should  have  letters 
at  least  2  mm.  high  and  the  lines  should  be  at  least  4mm.  apart. 
The  following  specimen  is  a  good  model: 

"Come,  little  leaves,"  said  the  wind  one  day; 
"Come  over  the  meadows  with  me,  and  play. 
Put  on  your  dresses  of  red  and  gold,— 
Summer  is  gone,  and  the  days  grow  cold." 

The  print  used  in  the  fourth  and  following  school  years  should 
have  letters  at  least  1.8  mm.  high,  and  the  space  between  the 
lines  should  be  at  least  3.6  mm.,  as  shown  in  the  accompanying 
specimen: 

" Harness  me  down  with  your  iron  bands; 

Be  sure  of  your  curb  and  rein; 
For  I  scorn  the  power  of  your  puny  hands, 

As  the  tempest  scorns  a  chain." 

The  length  of  the  line  is  also  very  important.  Short  lines  are 
more  easily  read  and  less  fatiguing  than  long  ones.  Cohn 
demands  that  no  book  be  printed  with  letters  less  than  1.5  mm. 
high  and  with  the  down  strokes  .25  mm.  thick.  The  lines 
should  be  no  longer  than  10  cm.,  or  four  inches.  The  question 
of  leading  is  an  important  consideration.  The  heavily  leaded 
lines  are  much  easier  to  read  than  those  lightly  leaded.  The 
difference  between  the  two  is  seen  in  the  two  accompanying 
specimens : 

The  President  shall  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia  of  the  several  states,  when  called  into 
the  actual  service  of  the  United  States;  he  may  require  the  opinion,  in 
writing,  of  the  principal  officer  in  each  of  the  executive  departments,  upon 
any  subject  relating  to  the  duties  of  their  respective  offices,  and  he  shall 
have  power  to  grant  reprieves  and  pardons  for  offences  against  the  United 
States,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment. 


296  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

The  President  shall  be  commander-in -chief  of  the  army  and  navy  oi 
the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia  of  the  several  states,  when  called  into 
the  actual  service  of  the  United  States;  he  may  require  the  opinion,  in 
writing,  of  the  principal  officer  in  each  of  the  executive  departments,  upon 
any  subject  relating  to  the  duties  of  their  respective  offices,  and  he  shall 
have  power  to  grant  reprieves  and  pardons  for  offences  against  the  United 
States,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment. 

It  is  important  to  have  the  room  and  the  page  well  illuminated 
at  all  times  when  reading  is  done.  Diamond  type,  as  shown  in 
the  accompanying  specimen,  should  be  read  without  a  strain  at 
a  distance  of  twelve  inches. 


to  her  own  interest  for  our  good,  ehe  has  obstinately  persisted  till  independence  is  now  within  our  graep.     We  hare  but  to  reach  fcrth 
to  it,  and  it  is  ours.     Why,  then,  should  we  defer  the  Declaration  ?  " 

There  are  many  other  regulations  that  should  be  understood 
and  heeded,  but  the  minor  ones  have  been  left  for  special 
treatises  on  the  subject.1  Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  laid 
upon  the  necessity  of  having  good  light,  well-printed  books  and 
maps,  the  best  of  blackboards,  and  rooms  with  sufficient  yet  not 
glaring  lights.  The  child  should  always  be  properly  placed  so 
that  he  can  see  without  strain  or  fatigue.  One  more  point  only 
will  be  suggested.  There  is  great  danger  of  requiring  too  much 
reading  and  writing  of  young  children.  Instruction  during  the 
first  few  years  of  school  life  should  be  mainly  oral.  The  frequent 
custom  of  assigning  so  much  book-work,  upon  which  children 
are  to  be  merely  tested,  shows  pedagogic  ignorance.  Still  more 
reprehensible  is  the  practice  of  giving  written  work  for  "busy 
work."  It  is  safe  to  say  that  during  the  first  six  school  years 
there  is  five  times  as  much  written  work  as  there  ought  to  be. 
The  only  way  many  teachers  know  how  to  keep  pupils  busy  is  to 
set  them  to  wagging  a  pen. 

Hearing:  Prevalence  of  Defects. — Although  there  seems  to 
be  considerable  variation  among  the  results  of  different  investi- 
gations, there  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  percentage  of 
children  with  defective  hearing  is  large.  Many  of  the  variant 
results  are  evidently  due  to  differences  in  means  and  conditions 
of  testing.  The  test  employed  in  all  cases  given  below  was  the 

1  For  many  additional  suggestions  see  Shaw's  School  Hygiene,  chap.  9 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  297 

whisper  test.  There  is  no  uniform  standard  for  whispering, 
different  persons  whispering  with  different  degrees  of  loudness. 
Much  depends  also  on  the  words  used  and  the  stillness  of  the 
room.  Each  investigator  has  to  establish  his  own  standard 
from  normal  cases.1 

Several  well-supported  conclusions  are  apparent  in  all  the 
results:  (i)  The  number  of  defects  increases  from  grade  to 
grade.  (2)  Among  the  poor  and  especially  among  the  uncleanly, 
the  percentage  is  higher  than  among  the  well-to-do.  (3)  The 
majority  of  children  and  many  of  the  teachers  were  not  aware 
of  the  defects.  In  one  New  York  school  only  one  child  out  of 
seventy-six  defectives  was  known  by  the  teacher  to  be  afflicted. 
At  Terre  Haute,  out  of  ninety-eight  defectives  the  teacher  knew 
of  only  one.  In  an  orphan  asylum,  at  the  same  place,  two  out  of 
twenty-seven  were  known  to  the  teacher.  (4)  Usually  both  ears 
are  not  affected  to  the  same  extent,  though  if  either  is  in  a  very 
serious  condition  the  other  suffers  also.  (5)  Among  feeble- 
minded or  generally  defective  children  there  are  many  more  with 
deranged  hearing  than  among  normal  children.  Barr,  of  Glas- 
gow, estimates  that  the  ratio  is  two  to  one.  (6)  In  many  cases 
those  with  abnormal  hearing  are  classed  by  their  teacher  as  lazy, 
absent-minded,  inattentive,  stubborn,  etc.  (7)  "Gelle  also  ex- 
amined with  the  watch  the  hearing  of  pupils  in  schools  of  the 
first  order  in  Paris.  He  carefully  tested  those  who  were  lowest 
in  their  classes,  and  were  counted  dull  and  bad,  and  always 
being  punished  and  scolded.  He  counted  the  normal  distance 
for  hearing  the  watch  at  1.25  metres.  In  one  school,  among  seven 
primary  pupils  he  found  only  two  who  could  hear  the  watch  at 
more  than  a  metre  with  both  ears,  four  heard  it  with  both  ears  at 
50  centimetres  and  under,  and  one  heard  it  with  one  ear  at 

1  metre,  and  with  the  other  at  20  centimetres.     Among  thirteen 
intermediate  pupils,  two  heard  the  watch  at  more  than  1.25 
metres;  five  at  from  i  to  1.25  metres  on  one  side  and  at  60  centi- 

1  Most  of  the  facts  herein  stated  concerning  defective  hearing  have  been  taken 
from  Chrisman's  study,  "The  Hearing  of  Children,"  Pedagogical  Seminary 

2  :  397-441- 


298 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


metres  and  below  on  the  other;  six  at  65  centimetres  and  below 
in  both  ears.  This  testing  was  done  in  the  greatest  silence.  Good 
cranial  perception  was  noticed  in  all.  All  these  pupils  were 
noted  by  their  teachers  as  incapable,  unintelligent,  disobedient, 
were  frequently  punished,  and  almost  always  placed  last  (on 
the  row  of  seats)  for  their  disobedience.  .  .  .  Among  twenty 
of  the  foremost  pupils  in  four  classes  in  a  school,  there  were  but 
six  who  heard  the  watch  at  less  than  50  centimetres,  whereas 
among  twenty  of  the  lowest  pupils  in  these  same  classes,  there 
was  not  a  one  that  heard  the  watch  at  more  than  50  centi^ 
metres."  1 

Chrisman  made  a  careful  analysis  and  summary  of  all  the 
important  investigations  that  had  been  made  on  the  hearing  of 
school  children.  The  following  table  is  largely  a  reproduction 
of  his  table:2 


TABLE  SHOWING  DEFECTS  OF  HEARING  AMONG  PUPILS  IN  VARI- 
OUS SCHOOLS 


NAME    OF 
INVESTI- 
OATOK 

PLACE 

DATE 

NUMBER 
EXAMINED 

NORMAL 
DIS- 
TANCE 

NUMBER 
DEFEC- 
TIVE 

PER    CENT. 
DEFECTIVE 

Reichard  .  .  . 
Sexton  
Weil 

Riga  
New  York  

1878 
1881 
1882 

1,055 
570 

5,905 

12ft 
15m 

235 
76 
1,855 

22.27 

13.33 
31.22 

Worrell  
Gelid  

Terre  Haute  .  .  . 
Paris  

1883 
1883 

491 
1,400 

15ft 
8m 

125 

25.49 
20  to  25 

Moure  
Bezold  

Bordeaux  
Munich  

1884 
1885 

3,588 

15m 

616 
495 

17.15 
25.8 

1885 

2  18*.  1  80f 

St.  Petersburg 

1888 

281 

16m 

55 

19.5 

Zhermunski. 
Barr  

St.  Petersburg 
Glasgow  

1888 
1889 

fJW.  1,897 
1    P.    1,680 
600 

12m 

W.  317 
P.    222 
166 

W.  16.7 
P.    13.17 
27  66 

Schmiegelow 

Copenhagen  .  .  . 

1889 

581 

4jn. 

f§I    35 
\  II  261 

I    6.02 
II  44.  9 

*  Higher  schools.  t  Lower  schools. 

{  W  =  whisper  test.   P  «=  Pulitzer's  acoumeter.      $  I  =  below  2  metres.   II  =  between  2  and  4  metres. 

It  is  even  more  true  of  hearing  than  of  sight  that  defects  may 
exist  unknown  to  the  individual  afflicted.  With  children  it  is 
very  difficult  to  discover  deficiencies.  Even  experts  have  diffi- 
culty in  determining.  Many  people  have  become  stone  deaf 
in  one  ear  without  realizing  it.  Still  more  frequently  great 

1  Chrisman,  Op.  cit.,  2  :  407-408.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  437. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  299 

dulness  may  exist  without  being  detected.  Parents  and  teachers 
usually  do  not  discover  the  hearing  defects  in  children  until  they 
assume  an  aggravated  form.  The  misunderstandings  due  to 
defective  hearing  are  more  often  attributed  to  inattention,  diso- 
bedience, or  stupidity.  The  two  former  verdicts  are  frequently 
rendered  especially  when  the  child  has  one  good  ear.  When  the 
other  ear  is  toward  the  teacher  and  misunderstandings  or  diso- 
bedience occur  the  teacher  is  sure  that  it  is  the  child's  fault, 
inasmuch  as  on  some  other  occasions  obedience  ensues.  This 
suggests  the  extreme  necessity  of  making  frequent  tests  upon 
school  children. 

-Tests  for  Deafness. — It  is  important  for  teachers  and  parents 
to  understand  how  to  make  simple  untechnical  tests  of  the 
hearing  of  children.  The  purpose  should  not  be  to  displace 
the  medical  specialist.  On  the  contrary,  the  teacher  and  the 
parent  should  simply  seek  to  prevent  as  many  diseases  as  possible 
and  be  intelligently  alert  in  their  discovery.  Once  disease  is 
suspected,  more  accurate  observations  and  tests  should  be  insti- 
tuted for  the  purpose  of  confirming  or  allaying  suspicion.  If 
a  pupil  is  dull,  listless,  inattentive,  or  a  mouth-breather,  notice 
carefully  whether  he  can  hear  what  is  said  to  him.  This  can 
generally  be  determined  by  speaking  in  a  low  voice,  especially 
with  the  lips  screened  from  .his  view.  This  last  is  necessary 
because  many  deaf  become  exceedingly  expert  lip-readers.  The 
whisper  test  is  recommended  by  many  as  very  efficient.  A 
standard  must  be  established  by  testing  several  persons.  It 
is  not  absolutely  reliable,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  stand- 
ardizing the  voice.  Again,  through  apperception  the  subject 
may  guess  much  by  detecting  a  single  syllable.  It  is  well  to 
use  a  variety  of  words  to  see  if  there  may  be  some  special 
type  of  sound-blindness.  Dr.  Blake,  a  famous  Boston  aurist, 
gave  the  following  test-words  in  a  grammar  school :  Cat,  dog, 
fan,  few,  long,  land,  log,  pen,  pod.  Many  other  words  were 
given  back  instead  of  the  test  words.  "The  words  used  for  pod 
were:  Hove,  hoe,  hawk,  hoved,  hoad,  hoge,  hart,  half,  hard, 
hope,  hub,  hark,  hood,  pawd,  parg,  palm,  pant,  paw,  parm, 


3oo  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

pok,  pout,  pard,  bong,  cot,  tod,  of — each  once;  heart,  hug, 
prove,  papa,  dod,  long,  tog — each  twice;  hollow,  path,  pot,  pob, 
pop,  log,  pual — each  three  times;  hot,  cod,  pug — each  four  times; 
have,  pond — each  five;  fog,  six;  park,  ten;  hard,  twenty-five; 
pog,  twenty-six;  hod,  thirty-six;  hog,  eighty-five."  1  These 
tests  are  very  suggestive  concerning  the  teaching  of  spelling 
also. 

A  more  accurate  test  is  the  watch  test.  The  room  should  be 
absolutely  quiet,  and  a  standard  determined  by  testing  several 
normal  persons  under  the  given  conditions.  The  child  tested 
should  not  see  the  watch  or  his  imagination  will  lead  to  error. 
The  test  should  be  made  by  gradually  bringing  the  watch  toward 
each  ear  (the  other  ear  being  stopped),  and  then  by  slowly  re^ 
moving  the  watch  from  the  ear.  The  distance  depends  much 
upon  the  watch  and  other  conditions.  The  most  accurate  test 
known  is  that  made  by  the  use  of  Seashore's  audiometer.  This 
consists  of  an  instrument  possessing  an  induction  coil,  a  dry 
battery,  a  galvanometer,  a  resistance  coil,  switches,  and  a  tele- 
phone receiver,  which  produce  and  convey  to  the  ear  a  definitely 
graded  series  of  tones.  These  are  controlled  by  merely  adjusting 
keys  which  make  electrical  connections.2 

All  cases  of  deafness  found  among  school  children  should  at 
once  be  reported  to  parents,  who  in  turn  should  consult  a 
specialist.  A  large  percentage  of  cases  will  yield  to  treat- 
ment if  discovered  in  time.  All  school  children  ought  to  be 
examined  about  once  a  year.  The  tests  would  not  take  long 
to  make.  If  not  all  are  tested  the  teacher  should  be  on  the 
watch  for  cases,  and  those  suspected  should  be  thoroughly 
examined. 

Causes:  Hygienic  Suggestions. — There  are  many  causes  of 
deafness,  a  few  of  which  will  be  mentioned.  First,  there  are  the 
hereditary  predispositions.  Fay  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  "brothers  and  sisters  of  the  deaf  are  found  to  be  deaf  in 

1  Chrisman,  Op.  cit.,  p.  428. 

2  Seashore,  "Suggestions  for  Tests  on  School  Children,"  Educational  Review 
22  :  69-82. 


WORK,  FATIGUE,  AND  HYGIENE  301 

twc  hundred  and  forty-five  cases  out  of  one  thousand.  Where 
both  parents  are  deaf  the  children  are  two  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
times  as  likely  to  be  deaf  as  when  both  parents  are  normal."  1 
Many  children  are  born  deaf  in  varying  degrees  from  slight 
dulness  of  this  sense  to  total  deafness.  Not  a  few  cases  of  con- 
siderable deafness  are  undiscovered  for  months  and  even  years. 
When  there  is  a  hereditary  predisposition  through  scrofulous 
affections  a  great  many  conditions  may  arise  to  induce  deafness. 
Chief  among  these  are  such  childhood  diseases  as  measles, 
scarlet-fever,  whooping-cough,  cerebro-spinal-meningitis,  diph- 
theria, mumps,  etc.  Colds  in  the  head,  which  are  so  lightly 
regarded  by  many,  are  apt  to  develop  into  chronic  conditions 
of  inflammation.  The  congested  membranes  may  press  upon 
the  eustachian  tube  or  prevent  sufficient  air  from  entering  the 
middle  ear.  Reichard  claims  that  of  all  causes  of  defective 
hearing  this  heads  the  list.  All  catarrhal  diseases  producing 
hypertrophied  conditions  of  the  nose  and  throat  cause  multitudes 
of  cases  of  disturbed  hearing.  Adenoid  growths  often  result, 
which  press  upon  the  eustachian  tube,  fill  the  nasal  passages,  or 
otherwise  obstruct  the  breathing.  The  mouth-breather  should 
always  be  examined  carefully,  as  conditions  quite  likely  exist 
which  demand  immediate  attention.  Enlarged  tonsils  are  a 
frequent  cause  of  deafness.  Adenoids  and  enlarged  tonsils 
usually  accompany  each  other.  They  are  of  surprising  fre- 
quency. One  physician  informed  me  that  he  had  operated 
upon  one  thousand  two  hundred  cases  in  eight  years.  How 
many  more  must  have  been  suffering  from  the  same  causes! 
It  is  of  vast  importance  to  have  the  specialist  remove  these 
growths,  thus  usually  relieving  the  deafness.  If  attended  to 
before  adolescence  the  cure  is  usually  complete.  If  postponed 
until  later,  for  some  unknown  reason,  cures  are  much  less  fre- 
quent. If  present  in  infancy,  adenoids  sometimes  develop  such 
alarming  proportions  as  to  press  upon  the  brain  and  produce 
idiocy.  Undoubtedly  many  children  might  have  been  saved  to  so- 
ciety had  they  received  the  attention  of  the  specialist  early  enough. 

1  Marriage  of  the  Deaf  in  A  merica,  p.  49. 


CHAPTER  XII 
INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND   DIFFERENCES 

General  Considerations. — There  are  few  who  would  not  admit 
that  among  people  there  are  many  obvious  differences  of  physical 
structure,  and  that  these  differences  are  natural.  But  when 
mental  qualities  are  considered  it  is  at  once  assumed  chat  all  are 
alike  or  would  be  if  educated  alike.  Teachers  even  are  apt  to 
think  that  all  the  intellectual  differences  among  children  can  be 
accounted  for  by  differences  of  diligence,  willingness  to  work, 
application,  etc.  They  will  even  admit  temperamental  differ- 
ences to  account  for  differences  of  application,  but  tacitly  assume 
that  intellectually  "all  men  are  created  equal."  No  greater 
fallacy  ever  existed.  No  two  individuals  were  ever  exactly  alike, 
physically,  mentally,  or  morally.  Occasionally  a  pair  of  twins 
seem  almost  indistinguishable,  but  careful  study  of  them  always 
reveals  large  differences. 

The  organic  world  reveals  great  differences  among  individuals 
of  the  same  species.  In  the  plant  world  it  would  be  impossible 
to  find  two  leaves,  two  blades  of  grass,  or  two  plants  absolutely 
alike.  Some  slight  differences  serve  to  give  each  its  individual- 
ity. In  turning  to  human  beings  we  shall  not  find  it  difficult  to 
discover  abundant  cases  of  individual  variations.  There  are 
the  giants  and  the  dwarfs,  the  tall  and  the  short,  the  blondes  and 
brunettes,  beautiful  and  ugly,  black  and  white,  good  and  bad, 
choleric  and  phlegmatic,  brilliant  and  stupid,  blue-eyed  and 
brown-eyed,  and  other  extremes  too  numerous  to  chronicle. 
Between  these  extremes  there  are  all  grades  and  shades  of 
apparent  difference.  Besides  these  obvious  differences  there 
are  innumerable  variations  which  are  not  so  apparent  and  hence 

302 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  303 

thought  not  to  exist.  Some  persons  burst  forth  into  song  with 
the  most  meagre  training,  while  others,  with  the  best  masters, 
could  never  carry  a  tune  or  discover  discord;  some  are  ready 
spellers,  while  many  others  are  hopeless;  some  are  born  mathe- 
maticians, while  others  never  can  progress  beyond  the  merest 
rudiments.  One  child  early  exhibits  mechanical  genius,  devising 
appliances  for  every  sort  of  work,  while  another  can  never  learn 
to  put  together  the  simplest  contrivance;  one  can  memorize 
verbatim  with  the  greatest  ease,  while  another  can  never  repeat 
a  quotation;  one  person  picks  up  the  pen  and  without  training 
begins  to  produce  literature,  while  another  cannot  chronicle 
accurately  the  simplest  event;  one  mounts  the  platform  and 
charms  the  multitude  with  his  eloquence,  while  another  is  made 
mute  in  the  presence  of  an  audience.  Although  all  human 
beings  possess  the  same  general  faculties,  yet  there  are  wonderful 
differences  of  development  among  individuals  and  also  between 
the  lowest  and  the  highest  as  a  class.  Even  zoologically  there 
are  notable  developmental  differences.  Fiskc  remarks1  that: 
"The  cranial  capacity  of  the  European  exceeds  that  of  the 
Australian  by  forty  cubic  inches,  or  nearly  four  times  as  much  as 
that  by  which  the  Australian  exceeds  the  gorilla;  and  the  ex- 
pansion is  almost  entirely  in  the  upper  and  anterior  portions." 
Anatomical  Variations. — Anatomists  inform  us  that  there  is 
great  variability  in  all  parts  of  man's  structure.  Many  organs 
are  atavistic  in  nature  and  approximate  the  structures  of  other 
animals.  The  arteries  are  so  variable  that  surgeons  have  found 
it  necessary  to  determine  the  probable  proportion  of  each  varia- 
tion. The  point  of  decussation  of  the  brachial  artery  sometimes 
varies  five  or  six  inches.  Occasionally  the  branching  takes  place 
at  so  high  a  level  as  to  make  the  artery  appear  double.  The 
position  of  the  heart  varies  so  much  that  in  occasional  cases 
it  is  transposed  from  the  left  to  the  right  side  of  the  body. 
This  condition  is  usually  associated  with  a  general  transposition 
of  the  viscera  and  the  possession  of  a  right  instead  of  a  left 
aortic  arch.  The  internal  structure  of  the  heart  varies  greatly 

1  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  48. 


304  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

among  individuals.1  An  occasional  person  has  all  double  teeth, 
others  have  double  rows  of  teeth.  Wallace  reports2  that  muscles 
are  so  variable  that  in  fifty  cases  studied  no  two  were  alike.  In 
thirty-six  cases  no  fewer  than  five  hundred  and  fifty-eight  varia- 
tions were  found.  In  a  single  male  subject  seven  muscular  va- 
riations atavistic  in  character  were  observed.  "Autopsies  have 
shown  that  in  right-handed  persons  the  speech  centre  is  placed 
or  is  functional  usually  in  the  left  cerebral  hemisphere,  while 
in  the  case  of  left-handed  individuals  aphasia  and  paralysis  are 
produced  by  lesions  involving  the  right  side  of  the  brain."  3 

Wiedersheim  is  authority  for  the  statement  that  there  are  such 
great  individual  differences  of  development  of  the  muscular 
system  that  new  muscles,  not  catalogued  in  the  text-books,  can 
be  found  in  nearly  every  person.  These  variations  are  retro- 
gressive and  vestigial,  occasional,  or  atavistic;  and  progressive 
or  newly  developing  structures.  Donaldson  tells  us  that  among 
brains,  as  in  the  case  of  all  organs  called  similar,  there  are  very 
numerous  and  wide  variations.  The  statistics  on  the  brain 
weights  of  eminent  men  and  the  discussion  of  the  relation  between 
body  and  mind  show  this  very  clearly.  Thackeray's  brain, 
weighing  1,644  grams,  is  the  heaviest  recorded;  while  Tiede- 
mann,  the  great  anatomist,  equally  as  great  in  intellect,  possessed 
a  brain  weighing  only  1,254  grams.  Not  only  are  there  great 
variations  in  size  and  weight,  but  also  in  structure.4  In  measur- 
ing height  sitting  and  standing,  "Zeissing  found  individual  dif- 
ferences here  so  great  that  the  proportions  of  some  children  at 
four  were  like  those  of  others  at  fourteen."  5  The  finger  prints 
of  each  person  are  so  unique  in  character  that  they  are  as  certain 
a  means  of  identification  as  a  photograph.  This  method  is  so 
accurate  that  it  has  been  used  to  some  extent  in  identifying  and 
in  tracing  criminals.  It  has  also  been  used  in  banks  as  a  means 
of  identifying  depositors,  being  much  more  conclusive  than 


1  See  Cunningham's  Text-Book  of  Anatomy,  pp.  946-956,  for  many  interesting 
cases  of  variations.  2  Darwinism,  p.  447. 

3  Howell,  Text-Book  of  Physiology,  p.  216. 
'Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  134.  *  Hall,  Adolescence,  I,  p.  61. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  305 

handwriting.  Although  the  size  of  the  finger  prints  enlarges 
from  childhood  to  maturity,  the  arrangement  never  changes  and 
duplicates  do  not  exist. 

Athletic  promoters  often  argue  that  athletic  training  can  de- 
velop stars  out  of  weaklings.  Real  trainers  know  better,  but 
the  public  is  often  made  to  believe  the  alleged  virtues.  Star 
athletes  are  not  made,  they  are  born  just  as  poets  are.  No  one 
without  athletic  power,  latent  or  apparent,  ever  developed  into 
a  star  on  the  athletic  field.  The  great  majority  would  never  be 
able  to  make  a  hundred-yard  dash  in  ten  seconds  though  they 
should  "work  out"  every  day  of  their  school  life.  Others  are 
acknowledged  sprinters  without  a  day  of  training.  Superin- 
tendent Reed  took  a  series  of  measurements  of  his  high-school 
boys,  and  they  discovered  that  only  those  with  arms  of  certain 
proportions  could  throw  a  ball  well.  Others  might  try  hard,  but 
could  never  succeed.  Nature  had  determined  these  matters 
long  before.  Tests  in  simple  reaction  times  show  variations 
from  .125  of  a  second  to  .250  of  a  second.  No  amount  of 
practice  materially  changes  the  individual's  norm. 

Variations  in  Sensitivity. — There  are  very  striking  individual 
differences  in  sensitivity.  Ribot  reports1  that  Lapps  take 
tobacco  oil  for  colic  and  that  their  skins  are  as  insensitive  as  are 
their  stomachs.  Montesquieu  says  that  in  Lapland  you  must 
flay  a  man  to  make  him  feel.  Ribot  cites  many  cases  of  persons 
who  have  hypersensitivity  to  either  heat  or  cold.  Some  persons, 
as  we  all  know,  are  so  sensitive  to  tickling  that  the  slightest  touch 
may  produce  syncope.  Point  a  finger  at  some  children  and 
suggest  tickling  and  they  are  so  hypersensitive  that  they  almost 
go  into  spasms.  Others  are  wholly  insensible  to  it.  Mosso 
tells  us  that  if  different  persons  are  exposed  to  cold  "one  takes 
inflammation  of  the  lungs,  another  tetany,  a  third  facial  paraly- 
sis, a  fourth  rheumatism,  a  fifth  enteritis,  a  sixth  a  simple  chill, 
a  seventh  some  disease  of  the  skin,  and  the  others  no  harm  at 
all.  It  is  the  same  with  intellectual  fatigue."  2 

1  Heredity,  p.  37. 
*  Fatigue,  p.  220. 


3o6  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Variations  in  Mental  Characteristics. — The  mental  processes 
of  different  people  have  their  special  characteristics,  although 
this  is  scarcely  suspected  by  the  popular  mind.  Some  are 
ear-minded,  some  eye-minded,  others  motor-minded.  Some 
persons  think  in  abstract  terms  very  early,  while  others  never 
get  to  the  point  of  doing  abstract  thinking,  but  must  have  every- 
thing in  the  concrete.  Darwin  tells  us  that  he  does  not  believe 
he  ever  would  have  made  a  mathematician  or  a  lawyer,  because 
he  found  it  difficult  to  carry  on  a  long  train  of  abstractions.  He 
had  a  marvellous  mind  for  the  concrete.  Some  pupils  succeed 
famously  with  arithmetic  and  algebra,  but  utterly  fail  in  geom- 
etry. A  diagnosis  of  their  types  of  imagery  would  doubtless 
reveal  inability  to  visualize.  Such  persons  would  never  make 
architects  or  inventors.  Some  children  begin  to  walk  at  six 
or  seven  months,  others  not  until  three  times  that  age.  Some 
children  can  talk  readily  at  twelve  months,  while  I  have  known 
a  bright  boy  to  defer  this  process  until  four  years  of  age.  One 
record  chronicles  a  list  of  twelve  hundred  words  at  two  years  of 
age.  Many  do  very  little  talking  before  two  years.  There  are 
adult  manual  laborers  of  ordinary  intelligence  who  do  not  have 
a  usable  vocabulary  exceeding  two  or  three  thousand  words. 
Many  scholars  use  from  thirty  to  thirty-five  thousand  and  recog- 
nize as  many  more. 

Tests  Revealing  Differences  in  Memorizing. — It  is  very  obvious 
that  there  are  very  great  differences  in  the  results  obtained  by 
different  persons  who  attempt  to  memorize.  These  differences 
in  results  are  undoubtedly  due  (a)  to  differences  in  native  ability, 
and  (b)  to  differences  in  methods  of  memorizing.  To  a  teacher 
who  has  not  thought  of  the  matter  the  carefully  recorded  results 
of  a  test  in  memorizing  would  be  very  suggestive,  possibly  almost 
incredible.  Many  teachers  are  in  the  habit  of  assigning  the 
same  work  to  an  entire  class,  and  really  expect  that  the  results 
obtained  should  be  very  uniform.  If  accurate  records  are  not 
kept  the  teacher  may  even  think  that  the  results  are  tolera- 
bly uniform.  One  of  my  students,  a  grade  teacher,  assigned 
twenty  poems  to  a  third  grade  and  a  fourth  grade,  to  be  memor- 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  307 


ized  under  uniform  conditions.  She  kept  a  record  of  the  progress, 
which  is  shown  for  the  fourth  grade  in  the  accompanying  table. 
The  table  for  the  third  grade  revealed  exactly  the  same  kind  of 
variations  in  results.  The  numbers  from  i  to  20  at  the  top  of 

TABLE  SHOWING  INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  IN  A  MEMORIZING  TEST 

FOURTH   GRADE 


NAME                                           AOE 

1 

2 

3 

4 

r, 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

1:5 

M 

15 

If, 

17 

18 

19 

20 

Mary                                  11 

X 

X 

X 

Ruth     8 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Helen                                 8 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Winnie            .          ...   9 

X 

X 

X 

Dan                                      9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Oraer  9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Walter                                9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Bennie  12 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Levern  8 

X 

X 

X 

Earl           ..                       10 

X 

X 

X 

Homer.        9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Joe       .          .                     10 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Albert                                  9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

John.    .                                9 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Bessie                               1  2 

X 

X 

X 

Oscar  10 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

Mary  E  11 

X 

X 

the  table  indicate  the  numbers  of  the  poems.  The  check  marks 
indicate  the  ones  learned  up  to  a  given  time  when  the  contest 
ended.  The  results,  be  it  remembered,  are  given  here  not  to 
show  differences  in  ability.  They  simply  indicate  differences  in 
accomplishment.  Probably  there  were  some  slight  variations  in 
the  amounts  of  time  devoted  to  the  exercise,  although  that  was 


3o8 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


closely  guarded.  Undoubtedly  there  were  very  great  differences 
in  diligence.  But  the  point  to  be  made  is,  that  here  was  some 
measurable  work  assigned  to  a  class  under  conditions  even  more 
uniform  than  those  attending  the  preparation  of  ordinary  school 
lessons,  and  the  results  vary  from  almost  nothing  accomplished 
to  perfect  results.  The  teacher  informed  me  that  those  who 
accomplished  the  least  probably  worked  the  hardest.  The 
results  of  this  test  were  quite  in  harmony  with  the  attainments 
of  the  same  children  in  memorizing  other  lessons.  The  teacher 
believed  that  the  results  indicated  real  native  differences  in 
ability.  I  feel  sure  that  such  was  the  case,  although  proof 
would  need  to  come  from  other  tests. 

Conditions  Determining  Grade. — In  the  chapter  on  the  relation 
between  mind  and  body  it  was  shown  emphatically  that  a  great 
many  school  children  are  below  normal  physically  in  some  par- 
ticular or  other.  In  some  schools  from  twenty  per  cent,  to  sixty 
per  cent,  according  to  grade,  suffer  from  defective  eyesight,  and 
from  five  per  cent,  to  twenty  per  cent,  have  defective  hearing. 
Add  to  these  the  many  cases  of  chronic  diseases,  deformities,  and 
temporary  ailments,  contagious  diseases,  disturbances  from  bad 
ventilation,  ill-adjusted  seating,  lack  of  sleep,  overwork,  etc. 

Variations  in  School  Ages. — Dr.  Search  made  a  study  of  the 
ages  of  school  children  in  a  Massachusetts  town  and  discov- 
ered great  variations  from  the  normal.  His  table  showing  the 
number  of  pupils  of  given  ages  in  each  of  the  grades  is  very 

TABLE  SHOWING  THE  NUMBER  OF  PUPILS  OF  DIFFERENT  AGES 
IN  TWO  SCHOOL  GRADES  * 


AGE  

8 

q 

10 

11 

1° 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

IP 

20 

?1 

99 

No.  in  4th  Grade  .  . 
No.  in  High  School, 

11 

85 

178 

139 

96 

61 

56 
9 

24 
50 

2 
63 

3 

7S 

-10 

n 

6 

1 

1 

suggestive.  A  part  of  that  table  is  reproduced  below.  Super- 
intendent Johnson,  of  Decorah,  Iowa,  who  carried  out  an  in- 
vestigation under  my  direction,  found  twelve-year-old  children 

'From  Search,  An  Ideal  School,  p.  19. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  309 


in  every  grade  from  the  first  to  the  ninth  inclusive.  Dr.  Search 
even  found  thirteen-year-olds  in  every  grade  from  the  first  to  the 
tenth,  and  fourteen-year-olds  in  every  grade  from  the  second  to 
the  eleventh.  He  even  reports  a  sixteen-year-old  in  the  first 
grade,  and  several  of  them  in  the  fourth. 

Differences  Revealed  by  Individual  Measurements. — If  a  sys- 
tematic study  were  made  by  a  teacher  of  the  individual  differences 

TABLE  SHOWING  INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AS  REVEALED  BY 
PHYSICAL  MEASUREMENTS  AND  SCHOOL  GRADES  * 


1st  yr. 

Boya 

1st  yr. 

Girls 

4th  yr. 

Boys 

4th  yr. 

Girls 

AGKS                  .  . 

MIN. 

MAX. 

MIN. 

MAX. 

MIN. 

MAX. 

MIN. 

MAX. 

13.9 

17.8 

11.0 

17.0 

18.0 

19.7 

17.3 

19.6 

Height  standing  . 

60.0 

70.9 

58.6 

65.8 

63.9 

72.0 

60.9 

66.7 

Height  sitting.  . 

30.5 

36.5 

30.5 

34.0 

33.0 

37.5 

30.5 

34.5 

Weight  
Arm  span  

105.0 
60.0 

145.0 
75.0 

72.0 
55.0 

145.0 
68.0 

130.0 
61.7 

160.0 
72.5 

95.0 
53.5 

125.0 
67.0 

Arm  length  

25.0 

31.0 

24.0 

28.0 

24.7 

31.0 

23.5 

28.0 

CHKST  MKAS. 
(a)    Normal  .... 

28.0 

34.0 

25.0 

35.0 

32.0 

30.0 

28.0 

32.0 

(6)    Expanded  .  . 

29.5 

37.0 

28.5 

36.0 

33.0 

40.0 

31.0 

33.5 

(c)  Contracted  .  . 

26.0 

31.5 

24.0 

31.5 

31.0 

31.5 

27.0 

31.5 

HEAD 

(a;  Circumference 

20.7 

22.5 

20.2 

22.5 

21.5 

22.4 

21.5 

23.0 

(6)    Length  

11.5 

13.5 

11.0 

14.5 

8.0 

12.5 

1  1  .5 

13.0 

(c)    Width  

6.0 

6.7 

5.5 

7.0 

6.0 

7.0 

5.5 

7.0 

Length  of  face  .  . 

6.7 

8.2 

7.0 

8.5 

7.5 

8.5 

7.2 

8.0 

CLASS  STANDING 
(«)   English  .... 

78.0 

95.0 

79.0 

96.0 

82.0 

90.0 

86.0 

95.0 

(6)    Algebra.  .  .  . 

81.0 

93.0 

82.0 

95.0 

81.0 

94.0 

80.0 

90.0 

(c)    Latin  

78.0 

95.0 

65.0 

94.0 

no  boys 

taking 

86.0 

93.0 

(d)   Botany  

80.0 

96.0 

78.0 

95.0 

(e  )  Physiology  .  . 

77.0 

93.0 

76.0 

95.0 

(/)  Phys.  geogra- 
phy   

58.0 

94.0 

70.0 

96.0 

(0)    Physics  

83.0 

93.0 

80.0 

90.0 

(h)    History.  .  .  . 

83.0 

94.0 

83.0 

93.0 

1  Measurements  are  indicated   in  inches,   weights  in  pounds.     The  grades 
are  in  per  cents. 


3io  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

of  physical,  intellectual,  emotional,  and  moral  qualities  of  the 
members  of  a  given  class,  the  results  would  frequently  astonish. 
The  members  of  a  class  who  are  hypothetically  on  an  equality  in 
every  respect,  who  are  to  be  instructed  alike,  and  who  are  ex- 
pected to  attain  similar  results,  in  reality  begin  with  very  diverse 
individual  equipment,  and  will  end  their  work  similarly.  That 
they  are  alike  or  should  be  treated  alike,  is  a  pure  fiction. 

A  study  including  some  of  the  points  suggested  above  was 
made  at  my  suggestion  by  Superintendent  Reed,  of  Odebolt, 
Iowa,  of  the  pupils  in  his  high  school.  The  accompanying  table 
summarizes  the  results.  One  needs  to  notice  but  a  few  of  the 
items  to  be  impressed  with  the  great  differences  between  maxi- 
mum and  minimum  attainments.  In  age  there  were  from  1.7  to 
6  years'  difference  between  members  of  the  same  class;  in  height 
from  6  to  10.9  inches;  in  weight  from  30  to  73  pounds;  in 
chest  measurement  from  4  to  6  inches;  in  length  of  head  from 
1.5  to  4.5  inches.  The  differences  between  the  maximum  and 
minimum  attainments  in  school  grades  are  equally  striking. 
The  smallest  difference  between  the  maximum  and  the  minimum 
is  five  per  cent,  and  the  greatest  is  thirty-six  per  cent.  The 
variations  in  class  markings  do  not  exhibit  as  wide  deviations 
as  I  am  confident  would  be  found  in  many  high  schools,  because 
the  particular  school  was  especially  well  graded  on  the  basis  of 
individual  ability. 

A  little  consideration  should  serve  to  recall  the  fact  that  there 
is  nothing  else  in  the  universe  so  plastic  and  modifiable  as  mind. 
Consequently  we  should  be  prepared  to  recognize  individual 
differences  among  minds.  These  mental  differences  are  far 
more  pronounced  than  any  physical  characteristics.  Two  per- 
sons may  be  strikingly  similar  in  height,  weight,  carriage,  and 
facial  features,  and  yet  be  so  dissimilar  in  mental  acumen,  dis- 
position, ideals,  aspirations,  and  character  that  one  of  them  does 
not  even  remind  us  of  the  other.  Listen  to  Mosso  on  this  point: 
"Even  at  birth  men  are  physiologically  diverse.  However  far 
we  look  back  into  the  mists  of  antiquity,  there  are  found  men 
who  toil  for  a  bare  living,  and  men  who  to  increase  their  own 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  311 

enjoyment  of  life  cause  others  to  toil.  Even  if  a  law  were  to 
place  all  men  in  the  same  conditions,  it  would  be  immediately 
broken,  seeing  that  a  law  could  never  be  stronger  than  nature; 
and  society  would  at  once  be  disorganized  once  more  owing  to 
the  different  dispositions  received  by  men  at  birth.  .  .  .  Cir- 
cumspection, perseverance,  prudence,  temperance,  adaptability, 
and  alertness  of  mind  are  not  gifts  which  nature  has  bestowed 
on  all  men,  and  he  who  is  born  with  them  will  know  how  to 
make  himself  obeyed.  The  disappearance  of  social  differences 
is  unfortunately  a  dream  still  more  beyond  our  reach  than  the 
universal  brotherhood  of  nations."  1 

Holmes  remarks  in  the  Autocrat  that  "men  often  remind  me 
of  pears  in  their  way  of  coming  to  maturity.  Some  are  ripe  at 
twenty,  like  human  Jargonelles,  and  must  be  made  the  most  of, 
for  their  day  is  soon  over.  Some  come  into  their  perfect  condi- 
tion late,  like  the  autumn  kinds,  and  they  last  better  than  the 
summer  fruit.  And  some,  that,  like  the  Winter-Nelis,  have 
been  hard  and  uninviting  until  all  the  rest  have  had  their  season, 
get  their  glow  and  perfume  long  after  the  frost  and  snow  have 
done  their  worst  with  the  orchards.  Beware  of  rash  criticisms; 
the  rough  and  astringent  fruit  you  condemn  may  be  an  autumn 
or  a  winter  pear,  and  that  which  you  picked  up  beneath  the  same 
bough  in  August  may  have  been  only  its  worm-eaten  windfalls. 
Milton  was  a  Saint- Germain  with  a  graft  of  the  roseate  Early- 
Catherine.  Rich,  juicy,  lively,  fragrant,  russet-skinned  old 
Chaucer  was  an  Easter-Beurre;  the  buds  of  a  new  summer 
were  swelling  when  he  ripened." 

Maudsley  wrote:2  "Perhaps  of  all  the  erroneous  notions 
concerning  mind  which  metaphysics  has  engendered  or  abetted> 
there  is  none  more  false  than  that  which  tacitly  assumes  or  ex- 
plicitly declares  that  men  are  born  with  equal  original  mental 
capacity,  opportunities  and  education  determining  the  differences 
of  subsequent  development.  The  opinion  is  as  cruel  as  it  is 
false.  What  man  can  by  taking  thought  add  one  cubit  either 
to  his  mental  or  to  his  bodily  stature?  Multitudes  of  human 

1  Fatigue,  p.  174.  'Body  and  Mind,  p.  43. 


3i2  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

beings  come  into  the  world  weighted  with  a  destiny  against  which 
they  have  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  contend;  they  are 
the  step-children  of  Nature,  and  groan  under  the  worst  of  all 
tyrannies — the  tyranny  of  a  bad  organization.  Men  differ,  in- 
deed, in  the  fundamental  characters  of  their  minds,  as  they  do 
in  the  features  of  their  countenances,  or  in  the  habits  of  their 
bodies;  and  between  those  who  are  born  with  the  potentiality 
of  a  full  and  complete  mental  development  under  favorable 
circumstances,  and  those  who  are  born  with  no  innate  capacity 
of  mental  development,  under  any  circumstances,  there  exists 
every  gradation.  What  teaching  could  ever  raise  the  congenital 
idiot  to  the  common  level  of  human  intelligence  ?  What  teach- 
ing could  ever  keep  the  inspired  mind  of  the  man  of  genius  at 
that  level?" 

Variations  in  Examination  Papers. — In  a  set  of  examination 
papers  in  a  large  high  school  there  is  always  exhibited  a  great 
range  of  attainments.  If  the  highest  is  marked  100  per  cent., 
the  lowest  doubtless  will  be  less  than  60  per  cent.,  and  often  not 
higher  than  25  per  cent.  Often  there  will  be  pupils  who  merit 
more  than  100  per  cent.,  that  is,  they  considerably  surpass  any 
excellence  which  we  may  rightfully  expect.  In  marking  a  set 
of  papers  of  average  difficulty  some  individual  papers  ought  to 
be  above  100  per  cent.  The  marks  of  100  per  cent,  or  A,  or 
Excellent,  ought  to  mean  not  absolute  marks,  but  that  point  in 
our  scale  which  represents  the  best  that  may  be  expected  on  the 
basis  of  standards  determined  for  the  given  grade  of  pupils  or 
kind  of  work.  For  example,  a  first-grade  pupil  might  be  marked 
100  per  cent,  in  penmanship,  but  an  eighth-grade  pupil  doing 
the  same  kind  of  crude  writing  ought  to  be  marked  about  25 
per  cent.  In  large  classes  several  will  accomplish  more  than 
100  per  cent,  by  outside  reading,  by  more  vigorous  thinking, 
and  because  of  natural  capacities.  In  colleges  it  is  quite  usual 
to  mark  some  students  A+. 

Thorndike  says: *  "The  amount  of  difference  actually  found 
in  children  of  the  same  age  or  in  children  in  the  same  school 

1  The  Principles  of  Teaching,  p.  71. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  313 

grade  is  greater  than  teachers  perhaps  realize.  The  range 
of  ability  in  school  children  of  the  same  age  is  such  that  in  a 
majority  of  capacities  the  most  gifted  child  will,  in  comparison 
with  the  least-gifted  child  of  the  same  age,  do  over  six  times  as 
much  in  the  same  time  or  do  the  same  amount  with  a  sixth  as 
many  errors.  ...  If  the  best  speller  of  a  class  can  spell  correctly 
such  words  as  fatiguing,  appreciate,  delicious,  guarantee, 
triumph,  and  accident,  the  worst  speller  will  barely  spell  such 
words  as  house,  dollar,  potato,  present,  severe,  and  praise.1  If 
the  weakest  pupil  of  a  class  in  computation  can  do  five  examples 
in  ten  minutes,  the  best  pupil  will  probably  do  at  least  twenty. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  teacher  of  a  class,  even  in  a  school  graded 
as  closely  as  is  possible  in  large  cities  where  two  classes  are  pro- 
vided in  each  building  for  each  grade  and  where  promotion 
occurs  every  six  months,  will  find  in  the  case  of  any  kind  of 
work  some  pupil  who  can  do  from  two  to  five  times  as  much  in 
the  same  time  or  do  the  same  amount  from  two  to  five  times  as 
well  as  some  other  pupil.  The  highest  tenth  of  her  class  will 
in  any  one  trait  have  an  average  ability  from  one  and  three- 
fourths  to  four  times  that  of  the  lowest  tenth,"  and  we  readily  see 
that  there  must  be  a  constantly  varying  deviation  from  normal 
conditions  and  averages. 

Again,  many  pupils  in  the  schools  have  undesirable  home  con- 
ditions under  which  to  do  their  work.  Probably  few  have  a 
room  properly  heated,  ventilated,  and  lighted,  adequate  desk 
room,  or  freedom  from  disturbance.  Many  are  under  special 
emotional  tension  because  of  straitened  pecuniary  circumstances, 
sorrow  in  the  family,  ill-treatment,  premature  love  affairs,  undue 
social  life,  real  or  imagined  ill-health,  and  a  great  variety  of 
other  causes.  All  of  these  factors  affect  the  working  capacity  of 
the  pupil  and  materially  influence  the  amount  and  quality  of 
work  accomplished.  The  wise  teacher  will  recognize  that  there 
are  influences  constantly  operative  in  affecting  results.  Before 
passing  judgment  causes  and  motives  will  be  investigated. 

1  Thorndike  appends  the  examination  papers  of  two  pupils  of  the  same  class.  A 
spelled  correctly  all  except  one  word  out  of  twenty,  while  B  missed  all  except  one. 


3i4  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Fewer  cases  will  be  measured  by  inflexible  rules,  and  more  and 
more  will  individual  cases  be  evaluated  on  their  merits. 

The  school  should  not  only  give  opportunities  for  dull  and 
delinquent  children,  but  equal  opportunities  for  precocious  and 
earnest  ones.  Not  only  are  there  many  subnormal  children  in 
every  school,  but  there  are  many  hypernormal  —  those  with 
potential  qualities  which  only  await  development  to  make  them 
the  illustrious  of  their  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  undue  propor- 
tions of  energy  and  time  are  given  to  the  lame  and  the  lazy. 
Much  solicitude  is  given  to  finding  ways  and  means  of  helping 
the  slow,  while  little  thought  is  given  to  special  ways  of  providing 
for  those  who  can  easily  forge  ahead.  It  is  usually  the  slow 
pupil  who  is  given  most  of  the  time  in  recitation  (except  when 
visitors  are  present) ;  the  slow  one  who  is  kept  after  school  to  be 
helped;  the  slow  one  over  whose  papers  the  teacher  burns  the 
midnight  oil.  The  bright  one  recites  quickly,  asks  few  time- 
consuming  questions,  easily  finds  occupation  for  himself,  is  sel- 
dom selected  for  extra  work,  and  is  a  joy  forever  to  his  teacher. 
But  how  frequently  he  becomes  restive  because  of  the  lock-step 
which  he  must  keep,  the  time  consumed  with  the  slower,  and  the 
consequent  narrowing  of  instruction.  The  result  is  that  fre- 
quently such  pupils  become  dissatisfied — they  know  not  why — 
and  either  make  a  dash  for  liberty,  become  chronic  sources  of 
annoyance,  or  learn  to  meekly  submit  and  become  dawdlers. 
Dr.  Search  has  shown1  that  children  often  drop  behind  a  grade, 
but  seldom  skip  one.  "The  opportunity  to  drop  behind  the 
class  is  always  an  individual  opportunity;  the  opportunity 
to  get  ahead  is  almost  always  limited  by  class  environment. 
Between  these  two  kinds  of  opportunity  there  is  an  abysmal 
difference.  As  schools  usually  go,  it  is  ten  times  harder  for  a 
pupil  to  gain  a  grade  than  to  lose  one;  ten  times  harder  to  rise 
than  to  fall.  Never  until  the  school  is  built  fundamentally  for 
the  individual  will  this  element  of  loss  disappear." 

Formative  vs.  Reformative  Education. — The  public  mind  is 
not  sufficiently  alert  to  the  importance  of  formative  versus 

1  An  Ideal  School,  p.  21. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  315 

reformative  education.  Of  course,  the  destitute,  crippled,  blind, 
and  vicious  should  ever  receive  sympathy  and  aid  from  those 
more  fortunate.  We  should  minister  most  wisely  to  their  every 
need;  we  should  heal  their  infirmities;  we  should  educate  them 
into  self-support  and  reclaim  them  to  society  if  possible;  but  it 
should  also  be  understood,  as  Horace  Mann  stated,  that  in 
education  one  former  is  worth  a  thousand  reformers.  There  is 
absolutely  no  question  that  a  dollar  spent  in  formative  educa- 
tional means  under  desirable  conditions  will  obviate  the  necessity 
of  spending  a  thousand  for  reformation.  A  careful  diagnosis 
of  educational  agencies  is  showing  very  clearly  that  one  promi- 
nent reason  why  so  many  pupils  withdraw  from  school  long 
before  they  have  exhausted  its  resources  and  before  they  have 
become  self-supporting  is  because  the  schools  do  not  amply 
minister  to  the  widely  divergent  wishes  and  needs  of  all  the 
pupils. 

From  the  time  of  its  organization  to  1899  the  State  of  Iowa1 
had  paid  for  the  equipment  and  maintenance  of  its  two  peni- 
tentiaries, $4,019,715;  for  its  four  hospitals  for  the  insane, 
$11,899,143;  for  the  two  reform  schools,  $1,765,624;  for  the 
institution  for  the  feeble-minded,  $2,205,175;  and  for  the  blind, 
deaf  and  dumb,  and  other  unfortunates,  enough  to  bring  the 
total  sum  expended  by  the  State  for  its  criminals  and  unfortu- 
nates, to  $24,104,101.  During  the  same  period  the  State  had 
appropriated  for  her  university,  her  normal  school,  and  her 
college  of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts,  $3,703,678.  That  is  to 
say,  the  State  had  paid  about  seven  times  as  much  for  the  care, 
education,  and  reformation  of  her  unfortunates  as  for  the  educa- 
tion of  her  intellectual  elite;  seven  times  as  much  for  those  at 
the  foot  of  the  ladder  as  for  those  at  the  top.  Should  not  the 
proportions  be  reversed?  If  the  State  should  contribute  to  the 
education  of  her  choicest  in  the  exact  measure  that  they  could 
make  use  of  it,  would  not  the  proportion  be  reversed  ?  When  we 
stop  to  realize  the  importance  to  society  of  the  leaders  among  men 
can  we  doubt  the  wisdom  of  training  them  to  the  highest  possible 

1  Iowa  is  taken  as  an  illustration  because  the  figures  are  accessible. 


3i6  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

efficiency?  In  business  it  is  recognized  that  the  great  manager 
is  worth  as  much  to  the  business  as  scores  or  even  thousands 
of  ordinary  workmen.  Is  the  same  not  true  of  society  ?  The 
worth  to  civilization  of  a  Shakespeare,  a  Mozart,  a  Pasteur,  an 
Edison,  a  Horace  Mann,  a  Washington,  a  Lincoln,  a  Thomas 
Arnold,  cannot  be  adequately  computed  in  quantitative  terms, 
but  has  each  one  not  been  of  infinitely  greater  value  to  society 
than  ten  thousand  who  have  simply  vegetated  ? 

It  is  certain  also  that  a  liberal  increase  in  expenditures  for 
education  would  greatly  decrease  the  amounts  necessary  for  the 
care  of  the  unfortunate.  Intelligence  reduces  disease,  pestilence, 
poverty,  and  crime.  The  great  army  of  unfortunates  are  largely 
the  victims  of  their  own  ignorance  or  of  the  ignorance  and  in- 
iquity of  the  fathers  visited  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation.  The  discoveries  of  Darwin,  Pasteur,  Jen- 
ner,  and  their  disciples  have  made  it  possible  to  almost  stamp 
out  small-pox,  diphtheria,  scarlet-fever,  and  a  host  of  other  in- 
fectious diseases.  The  researches  and  sacrifices  of  Lazear  and 
Reed  have  made  it  possible  to  almost  eliminate  yellow-fever. 
Milk  inspection  and  the  enforcement  of  sanitary  precautions  are 
saving  thousands  of  babes  annually  in  our  metropolitan  centres. 
A  higher  standard  of  intelligence  and  the  enforcement  of  higher 
ethical  principles  in  marriage  would  largely  eliminate  the  blind, 
the  deaf  and  dumb,  the  insane,  criminals,  and  paupers.  Higher 
intelligence  and  higher  ethical  standards  are  just  what  schools 
stand  for. 

School  Attendance. — Children  drop  out  of  schools  in  great 
numbers  because  the  schools  do  not  offer  what  they  demand, 
and  often  really  need.  The  growth  of  second-rate  business  col- 
leges demonstrates  clearly  that  the  public  schools  are  failing  to 
provide  a  certain  type  of  instruction  which  the  people  demand. 
If  this  is  not  to  be  had  under  desirable  auspices,  it  will  be  ob- 
tained in  the  only  way  left.  The  development  of  private  trade- 
schools,  manual-training  schools,  and  technological  institutions 
is  evidence  that  certain  classes  of  people  demand  an  education 
that  looks  more  directly  toward  vocations  in  which  their  chil- 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  317 

dren  are  certain  to  engage.  The  lack  of  such  training  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  has  driven  thousands  from  its  doors,  and  the  lack  of 
means  to  secure  it  at  private  expense  has  driven  the  boys  and 
girls  to  work  under  unwholesome  conditions  or,  still  worse,  to 
the  streets.  In  either  case,  they  are  surrounded  by  immoral  in- 
fluences. From  these  classes  most  of  the  recruits  in  crime  are 
derived.  Is  it  not  time  that  the  public  awoke  to  the  need  of 
preventive  protection  ?  Judge  Lindsey,  of  the  Denver  Juvenile 
Court,  who  has  studied  so  closely  the  causes  of  juvenile  delin- 
quency, is  certain  that  the  lack  of  vocational  education  is  one  of 
the  most  prolific  sources  of  crime.  He  pointedly  remarks  that 
"the  only  place  in  the  United  States  where  a  boy  can  learn  a 
trade  at  public  expense  is  in  the  reform  school!"  This  is  a  sad 
commentary.  The  public  school  should  be  made  to  fit  the 
children,  and  not  the  children  to  fit  the  school. 

Education  a  Means  of  Revelation  and  Adjustment. — President 
David  Starr  Jordan,  through  his  vigorous  utterances  from  Stan- 
ford University,  has  been  doing  much  toward  the  reorganization 
of  schools.  He  says:  "There  is  no  virtue  in  educational  sys- 
tems unless  the  systems  meet  the  needs  of  the  individual.  It  is 
not  the  ideal  man  or  the  average  man  who  is  to  be  trained;  it 
is  the  particular  man  as  the  forces  of  heredity  have  made  him. 
His  own  qualities  determine  his  needs.  '  A  child  is  better  unborn 
than  untaught.'  A  child,  however  educated,  is  still  untaught  if 
by  his  teaching  we  have  not  emphasized  his  individual  character, 
if  we  have  not  strengthened  his  will  and  its  guide  and  guardian, 
the  mind.  ...  All  education  must  be  individual — fitted  to 
individual  needs.  That  which  is  not  so  is  unworthy  of  the 
name.  A  misfit  education  is  no  education  at  all.  .  .  .  Higher 
education  has  seemed  to  be  the  need  of  the  few  because  it  has 
been  so  narrow.  It  was  born  in  the  days  of  feudal  caste.  It 
was  made  for  the  few.  .  .  .  The  rewards  of  investigation,  the 
pleasures  of  high  thinking,  the  charms  of  harmony,  were  not  for 
the  multitude.  To  the  multitude  they  must  be  accessible  in  the 
future.  ...  If  we  are  to  make  men  and  women  out  of  boys  and 
girls,  it  will  be  as  individuals,  not  as  classes.  The  best  field  of 


3i8  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

corn  is  that  in  which  the  individual  stalks  are  most  strong  and 
most  fruitful.  Class  legislation  has  always  proved  pernicious 
and  ineffective,  whether  in  a  university  or  in  a  state.  The 
strongest  nation  is  that  in  which  the  individual  man  is  most 
helpful  and  most  independent.  The  best  school  is  that  which 
exists  for  the  individual  student."  1 

President  Eliot,  in  his  admirable  article,  "The  Function  of 
Education  in  Democratic  Society,"  has  said:  "Another  im- 
portant function  of  the  public  school  in  a  democracy  is  the  dis- 
covery and  development  of  the  gift  or  capacity  of  each  individual 
child.  This  discovery  should  be  made  at  the  earliest  practicable 
age,  and,  once  made,  should  always  influence,  and  sometimes 
determine,  the  education  of  the  individual.  It  is  for  the  interest 
of  society  to  make  the  most  of  every  useful  gift  or  faculty  which 
any  member  may  fortunately  possess;  and  it  is  one  of  the  main 
advantages  of  fluent  and  mobile  democratic  society  that  it  is 
more  likely  than  any  other  society  to  secure  the  fruition  of  indi- 
vidual capacities.  To  make  the  most  of  any  individual's  pecul- 
iar power,  it  is  important  to  discover  it  early,  and  then  train  it 
continuously  and  assiduously.  It  is  wonderful  what  apparently 
small  personal  gifts  may  become  the  means  of  conspicuous 
service  or  achievement,  if  only  they  get  discovered,  trained,  and 
applied.  ...  In  the  ideal  democratic  school  no  two  children 
would  follow  the  same  course  of  study  or  have  the  same  tasks, 
except  that  they  would  all  need  to  learn  the  use  of  the  elementary 
tools  of  education — reading,  writing,  and  ciphering.  The  differ- 
ent children  would  hardly  have  any  identical  needs.  There 
might  be  a  minimum  standard  of  attainment  in  every  branch 
of  study,  but  no  maximum.  The  perception  or  discovery  of  the 
individual  gift  or  capacity  would  often  be  effected  in  the  elemen- 
tary school,  but  more  generally  in  the  secondary;  and  the  making 
of  these  discoveries  should  be  held  one  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  the  teacher's  work.  The  vague  desire  for  equality  in  a 
democracy  has  worked  great  mischief  in  democratic  schools. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  equality  of  gifts,  or  powers,  or  faculties 

1  Jordan,  Care  and  Culture  of  Men,  pp.  66-71. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  319 

among  either  children  or  adults.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  the 
utmost  diversity;  and  education  and  all  the  experience  of  life 
increase  these  diversities,  because  school,  and  the  earning  of  a 
livelihood,  and  the  reaction  of  the  individual  upon  his  sur- 
roundings, all  tend  strongly  to  magnify  innate  diversities.  The 
pretended  democratic  school  with  an  inflexible  program  is 
fighting  not  only  against  nature,  but  against  the  interests  of 
democratic  society.  Flexibility  of  program  should  begin  in 
the  elementary  school,  years  before  the  period  of  secondary 
education  is  reached.  There  should  be  some  choice  of  subjects 
of  study  by  ten  years  of  age,  and  much  variety  by  fifteen  years 
of  age.  On  the  other  hand,  the  programs  of  elementary  as 
well  as  of  secondary  schools  should  represent  fairly  the  chief 
divisions  of  knowledge,  namely,  language  and  literature,  mathe- 
matics, natural  science,  and  history,  besides  drawing,  manual 
work,  and  music.  If  school  programs  fail  to  represent  the 
main  varieties  of  intellectual  activity,  they  will  not  afford  the 
means  of  discovering  the  individual  gifts  and  tendencies  of  the 
pupils."  1 

Search  says:2  "The  child  of  a  king,  plus  heredity,  plus  en- 
vironment, stands  at  the  door  of  the  school  and  knocks,  asking 
for  that  which  uniformity  can  never  give.  Before  the  teacher, 
frequently  of  limited  horizon  and  questionable  motive,  there 
gather  in  the  school  fifty  children.  Whence  came  they  ?  They 
are  the  children  of  God,  born  of  modifying  parentages  and  con- 
ditioned by  an  evolution  which  knows  no  uniformity.  In  sizes, 
weights,  temperaments,  physical  health,  responsibilities,  capa- 
bilities, and  opportunities,  what  a  heterogeneous  assemblage! 
Side  by  side,  in  the  same  school,  sit  the  children  of  wealth  and  of 
poverty,  of  native  and  of  foreign  descent,  the  well-fed  and  the 
meagrely  nourished,  the  warmly  clad  and  the  scantily  protected 
from  the  storm,  the  refreshed  by  adequate  sleep  in  rooms  of 
pure  air  and  those  worn  from  meagre  hours  of  rest  in  a  crowded, 
unventilated  room,  the  child  of  luxury  and  the  one  of  heavy  re- 
sponsibilities, the  spoiled  by  indulgent  parents  and  the  indepen- 

1  Educational  Reform,  p.  408.  3  An  Ideal  School,  p.  160. 


32o  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

dent  through  forced  self-reliance,  the  robust  in  physical  health 
and  the  incapacitated  by  past  sicknesses  and  injuries,  the  well- 
taught  and  the  ill-taught,  the  child  of  virtue  and  the  one  whose 
whole  life  is  a  moral  struggle,  the  child  of  encouragement  and 
ambition  and  the  one  heart-sick  and  of  little  expectancy.  Is  this 
an  exceptional  school?  If  not,  what  are  the  individual  rights 
of  these  children?  How  can  any  system  of  uniformity  answer 
the  responsibility  which  it  assumes?" 

Burbank,  the  botanical  wizard,  considers  differentiation  as 
absolutely  necessary  and  unavoidable.  He  says:1  " Right  here 
let  me  lay  special  stress  upon  the  absurdity,  not  to  call  it  by  a 
harsher  term,  of  running  children  through  the  same  mill  in  a 
lot,  with  absolutely  no  real  reference  to  their  individuality.  No 
two  children  are  alike.  You  cannot  expect  them  to  develop 
alike.  They  are  different  in  temperament,  in  tastes,  in  disposi- 
tion, in  capabilities,  and  yet  we  take  them  in  this  precious  early 
age,  when  they  ought  to  be  living  a  life  of  preparation  near  to  the 
heart  of  nature,  and  we  stuff  them,  cram  them,  and  overwork 
them  until  their  poor  little  brains  are  crowded  up  to  and  beyond 
the  danger  line.  The  work  of  breaking  down  the  nervous  systems 
of  the  children  of  the  United  States  is  now  well  under  way.  .  .  . 
It  is  imperative  that  we  consider  individuality  in  children  in  their 
training  precisely  as  \ve  do  in  cultivating  plants.  Some  children, 
for  example,  are  absolutely  unfit  by  nature  and  temperament  for 
carrying  on  certain  studies.  Take  certain  young  girls,  for  ex- 
ample, bright  in  many  ways,  but  unfitted  by  nature  and  bent,  at 
this  early  age  at  least,  for  the  study  of  arithmetic.  Very  early — 
before  the  age  of  ten,  in  fact — they  are  packed  into  a  room  along 
with  from  thirty  to  fifty  others  and  compelled  to  study  a  branch 
which,  at  best,  they  should  not  undertake  until  they  have  reached 
maturer  years.  Can  any  one  by  any  possible  cultivation  and 
selection  and  crossing  compel  figs  to  grow  on  thistles  or  apples 
on  a  banana  tree?" 

President  Eliot  says:2      "Uniformity  in  intellectual  training 

1  "The  Training  of  the  Human  Plant,"  Century,  72  :  127-138. 

2  Hinsdale,  Studies  in  Education,  p.  123.. 


INDIVIDUAL  VARIATIONS  AND  DIFFERENCES  321 

is  never  to  be  regarded  as  an  advantage,  but  as  an  evil  from 
which  we  cannot  completely  escape.  ...  All  should  admit  that 
it  would  be  an  ineffable  loss  to  mankind  if  the  few  great  men  were 
averaged  with  the  millions  of  common  people — if  by  the  aver- 
aging process  the  world  had  lost  such  men  as  Faraday  and  Agas- 
siz,  Hamilton  and  Webster,  Gladstone  and  Cavour.  But  do  we 
equally  well  understand  that  when  ten  bright,  promising  children 
are  averaged  with  ninety  slow,  inert,  ordinary  children,  a  very 
serious  loss  is  inflicted,  not  only  upon  those  ten,  but  upon  the 
community  in  which  the  one  hundred  children  are  to  grow  up  ? 
There  is  a  serious  and  probably  an  irreparable  loss  caused  by  the 
averaging  of  the  ten  with  the  ninety  children.  Therefore  I  say 
that  uniformity  in  education  all  along  the  line  is  an  evil  which 
we  should  always  be  endeavoring  to  counteract,  by  picking  out 
the  brighter  and  better  children,  and  helping  them  on  by  every 
means  in  our  power." 


CHAPTER   XIII 
THE   NATURE   OF   MEMORY   PROCESSES 

MEMORY  is  one  of  the  most  important  powers  of  the  human 
mind,  viewed  either  from  the  stand-point  of  the  development 
of  civilization  or  from  the  stand-point  of  the  technique  of  educa- 
tion. Without  it  all  education  and  all  advancement  would  be 
impossible.  It  is  only  through  the  proper  conservation  of  ex- 
periences, individual  and  collective,  that  progress  is  made  pos- 
sible. The  more  faithfully  the  experiences  of  the  animal  are  re- 
corded, the  higher  his  place  in  the  scale  of  development.  There 
is  no  educational  process  into  which  memory  does  not  enter  as 
a  factor  of  prime  importance.  Hence  the  significance  of  the 
study  of  the  nature  of  memory  and  its  training  in  a  discussion 
of  educational  psychology. 

Almost  everybody  assumes  to  know  what  memory  is.  Even 
the  unlettered  do  not  hesitate  to  advance  a  doctrine  concerning 
its  improvement.  Volumes  have  been  written,  and  many  prac- 
tical suggestions  have  been  given,  for  the  improvement  of  the 
memory,  but  it  is  only  within  very  recent  years  that  scientific 
doctrines  concerning  the  nature  of  memory  and  its  wise  use 
have  been  evolved.  Since  all  sound  methods  of  its  improve- 
ment must  rest  on  the  right  conception  of  its  nature,  it  is  easy 
to  understand  that  many  of  the  older  methods  of  training  have 
been  entirely  overthrown.  The  old  methods  have  been  found 
to  be  not  only  incorrect,  but  some  of  them  positively  harmful. 
We  shall  see  that  all  training  of  the  memory  must  be  carried  on 
according  to  scientific  principles.  The  old  saws  and  sayings 
concerning  memory-training  are  no  more  valid  than  the  prov- 
erbs recording  popular  opinion  of  the  weather,  the  treatment  of 
disease,  or  many  other  popular  dicta  which  really  represent 

322 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     323 

superstitious  credulity  rather  than  scientific  observation.  We 
shall  see  that  a  sound  theory  of  memory  and  its  training  will 
furnish  many  underlying  principles  of  method  in  all  education. 
Therefore,  because  of  the  vital  connection  between  memory- 
training  and  all  other  intellectual,  affective,  and  volitional  train- 
ing, it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  teachers  have  a  thorough 
understanding  of  the  subject. 

A  Preliminary  Point  of  View. — In  ordinary  parlance,  when 
memory  is  spoken  of,  the  term  implies  the  series  of  mental  op- 
erations whereby  facts  are  registered  and  retained  in  the  mind, 
and  at  some  future  time  reproduced.  In  this  loose  way  of  con- 
sidering the  matter,  the  various  functions  in  the  series  are  con- 
ceived of  as  being  carried  on  independent  of  all  physical  or 
physiological  relations,  and  the  mind  is  supposed  in  some  mys- 
terious way  to  "store  up"  the  impressions  until  needed,  when 
they  are  again  in  an  equally  mysterious  way  "  brought  forth." 
The  main  difference  between  the  older,  popular  conception 
and  the  newer  scientific  views  is  in  the  present  recognition  of 
the  physical  and  physiological  links  in  the  series  of  phenomena. 
Memory,  instead  of  being  a  "storehouse,"  consists  of  dynamic 
relations  established  through  experience.  There  is  now  a  quite 
definite  "natural  science"  of  memory.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  an 
unexplainable  something  beyond  the  sequence  of  observable 
phenomena.  But  that  is  not  peculiar  to  psychology.  The 
same  is  equally  true  of  physics  or  chemistry.  Natural  science, 
in  any  realm,  merely  explains  the  series  of  changes  that  occur; 
the  final  what,  why,  and  how  are  not  attempted  in  the  scientific 
discussion.  Those  questions  belong  to  metaphysics  rather  than 
to  science.  The  psychologist  is  as  near  to  an  explanation  of  the 
simultaneous  or  sequential  occurrences  of  a  brain  state  and  a 
corresponding  mental  state  as  the  physicist  is  to  telling  why 
negative  electricity  attracts  positive,  or  why  a  body  falls  to  the 
earth;  or  as  the  chemist  is  to  explaining  the  cause  of  chemical 
affinity.  They  can  each  merely  trace  the  serial  changes.  The 
psychologist,  regarding  his  subject  as  a  branch  of  natural  science, 
should  proceed  in  exactly  the  same  way.  To  go  beyond  is  to 


324  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

invade  the  realm  of  the  metaphysician  and  to  forsake  purely 
psychological  methods. 

Neural  Modifications. — Whenever  a  stimulus  acts  upon  a 
sense-organ  it  sets  up  some  change,  either  mechanical  or  chemi- 
cal, in  that  organ,  which  in  turn  causes  a  wave  of  impulse  to  be 
carried  along  the  sensory  nerve  toward  the  brain.  There  a 
change  takes  place  in  the  physical  arrangement  of  the  neural 
tissue.  Just  what  this  change  is  in  every  case,  no  one  is  able  to 
say,  but  that  there  is  rearrangement  can  be  proved.  In  Laura 
Bridgman's  brain,  for  example,  the  areas  controlling  functions 
which  were  exercised  were  normally  developed,  while  the  other 
portions  were  less  well  developed.  We  know  that  exercise  of  the 
brain  causes  a  change  in  size.  This  is  demonstrated  through 
such  experiments  as  those  of  Venn  in  measuring  the  heads  of 
Cambridge  students.  Long  generations  of  exercise  of  particular 
kinds  have  also  produced  the  varying  peculiarities  of  brain  struct- 
ure in  different  animals,  e.  g,,  large  areas  for  smell  in  the  dog, 
large  frontal  areas  in  man,  etc.  Again,  lack  of  exercise  causes 
atrophy.  This  is  demonstrated  in  the  case  of  defectives  like 
Laura  Bridgman  and  others.  These  changes  in  neural  tissue 
are  made  possible  through  the  property  of  plasticity.  There  is 
also  a  tendency  toward  permanence  of  structure  after  changes 
have  been  wrought  in  the  tissues.  Growth  means  plasticity, 
and  also  tendency  toward  fixity. 

Organic  Memories. — Biologically,  memory  is  not  a  property 
of  neural  tissue  alone.  There  is  ample  evidence  to  support  the 
belief  that  all  living  animal  tissues  possess  memory.  We  may 
go  a  step  further  and  assert  that  the  basal  factors  of  memory 
— registration,  conservation,  and  reproduction  of  impressions 
gained  through  stimulation — are  common  to  all  organic  tissues. 
All  those  modifications  produced  and  conserved  in  living  matter, 
plant  or  animal,  are  termed  organic  memories.  Thus,  muscular, 
osseous,  cartilaginous,  and  vegetable  tissues  all  possess  organic 
memories  of  previous  experiences.  Organic  memories  include 
race  memories  as  well  as  individual  memories.  The  basis  of 
heredity  and  instinct  is  organic  memory.  Huxley  has  written, 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     325 

concerning  the  same  point,  the  following:  "It  is  not  to  be 
doubted  that  those  motions  which  give  rise  to  sensation  leave 
on  the  brain  changes  of  its  substance  which  answer  to  what 
Haller  called  vestigia  rerum,  and  to  what  the  great  thinker 
David  Hartley  termed  'vibratiuncules.'  The  sensation  which 
has  passed  away  leaves  behind  molecules  of  the  brain  compe- 
tent to  its  reproduction — 'sensigenous  molecules,'  so  to  speak, 
which  constitute  the  physical  foundation  of  memory."  Meu- 
mann1  has  very  recently  emphasized  and  endorsed  the  bio- 
physical idea  of  the  fundamental  meaning  of  memory  first  ad- 
vanced by  Hering.2  The  "dispositions,"  or  "traces,"  produced 
by  given  experiences  constitute  the  conserving  element  of  all 
memory.  The  reawakening  of  these  traces  constitutes  the 
biological  basis  of  recall. 

Biological  Meaning  of  Registration. — We  thus  see  that  regis- 
tration is  primarily  a  physical  phenomenon  depending  on  the 
plasticity  of  the  nervous  structure.  Retention  is  fundamentally 
physical  and  physiological.  The  neural  substance,  once  changed 
in  a  given  manner,  tends  by  virtue  of  nutrition  to  maintain  the 
new  condition.  It  is  not  possible  in  every  case  to  demonstrate 
that  a  change  has  taken  place,  and  still  more  difficult  to  prove 
that  the  modifications  have  been  conserved.  But  may  we  not 
draw  upon  the  physical  analogy  of  magnetization  in  which 
modification  and  conservation,  though  unseen,  are  certain  and 
undoubted  ?  The  iron  which  has  been  magnetized  has  under- 
gone a  molecular  modification.  The  eye  cannot  detect  it,  the 
balance  record  it,  the  scales  measure,  nor  chemical  reactions 
indicate;  but  the  fact  is  attested  by  its  behavior  on  certain 
occasions. 

So,  eye,  ear,  balance,  or  measure  cannot  prove  that  a  few 
facts  learned  to-day  modify  my  brain  structure.  But  my  be- 
havior to-morrow,  next  week,  next  year,  in  old  age,  will  tell  the 
fact  plainly.  The  particular  facts  I  say  I  have  forgotten,  but 
why  do  I  plan  my  business,  arrange  my  affairs,  entertain  certain 

1  Vorlesung  zur  Einfuhrung  in  die  Experimentelle  Pddagogik,  Leipsic,  1907. 

2  Memory  as  a  General  Function  of  Organized  Matter,  1870. 


326  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

projects  and  immediately  reject  others?  You  say,  because  of 
the  teachings  of  experience.  Yes,  but  what  is  experience  but  the 
residuum  of  various  individual  effects  which  have  been  con- 
served, and  in  the  light  of  which  I  give  immediate  judgment? 
The  practical  physician  diagnoses  a  case  and  immediately  pre- 
scribes before  a  novice  could  have  detected  symptoms.  Why  can 
he  do  this?  He  does  not  consciously  go  over  all  his  previous 
cases,  marshal  each  one  individually  before  him;  he  does  not 
recall  his  lectures,  nor  the  books  he  has  read.  But  in  a  no  less 
true  sense  he  remembers  all  his  experiences,  and  now  reacts 
differently  for  all  those  combined  experiences.  The  next  time  he 
\vill  act  still  differently  in  the  light  of  the  new  plus  all  of  the  old. 
Dr.  J.  M.  Buckley  relates1  "When  but  a  boy  I  once  sat  in 
the  office  of  Jay  Cooke,  when  he  was  transacting  the  business 
that  enabled  the  United  States  to  proceed  in  the  great  conflict. 
A  man  came  in  and  said, '  Will  you  take  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars  at  such  a  rate?'  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  Mr. 
Cooke  said,  'No,  sir.'  Another  man  came  in  and  asked, 
'  What  will  you  give  me  on  such  a  security  ? '  '  The  rate  of  one- 
sixteenth  of  one  per  cent,  in  advance  of  what  I  said  last  week,' 
was  the  immediate  reply.  I  said  to  Mr.  Cooke,  'You  did  not 
seem  to  think  at  all  when  you  made  those  answers.'  'Of  course 
I  did  not  think.  That  is  my  business.  All  these  things  are  in 
my  mind  all  the  time.  You  present  them  and  I  decide.'" 
Were  the  ideas  consciously  present,  or  even  present  at  all  ? 

Memory  in  Micro-Organisms.— It  will  be  shown  in  the  chapter 
on  imitation  that  all  living  protoplasmic  material  possesses  a 
certain  power  of  selection  among  various  stimuli,  tending  to 
avoid  those  that  are  harmful  and  to  maintain  those  that  are 
beneficial.  Certain  bacteria  have  been  observed  to  avoid  poi- 
sonous materials  placed  near  them  and  to  "fly  from  the  mouth 
of  the  tube  in  haste,  with  all  the  external  signs  of  intelligence  and 
fear,"  but  when  an  extract  of  beef  is  placed  near  them,  "they 
swarm  toward  it  from  afar,  crawling  over  one  another."  Simi- 
larly plants  present  a  certain  behavior  toward  certain  stimuli, 

1  The  Chautauqua  Assembly  Herald,  August  10,  1901. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     327 

and  once  a  reaction  is  set  up  there  is  a  tendency  to  maintain  it, 
even  after  the  stimulus  is  removed.  Furthermore,  as  cited  by 
Baldwin,  plants  and  unicellular  animals  "go  after,  or  shrink 
from,  a  stimulating  influence,  according  as  its  former  im- 
pression has  been  beneficial  or  damaging."  From  these  re- 
actions Binet  concludes  that  protozoa  have  memory,  choice,  and 
volition.  Bunge  says,  "The  behavior  of  these  monads  in  their 
search  after  food,  and  their  method  of  absorbing  it,  are  so  re- 
markable, that  one  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  acts 
are  those  of  conscious  beings."  Baldwin  does  not  care  to  com- 
mit himself,  and  so  he  says,  "They  behave  as  though  they  had  " 
the  various  forms  of  intelligence  ascribed.1 

There  appears  to  be  no  difficulty  in  accepting  all  the  conclu- 
sions except  the  one  concerning  consciousness.  Monads  cer- 
tainly possess  memory,  that  is,  power  to  record,  conserve,  and 
similarly  react  at  subsequent  times.  They  may  exhibit 
choice,  but  it  is  blind  choice,  and  they  exert  volitional  activity, 
which  fundamentally  is  the  exertion  of  energy — self-activity — 
in  the  direction  of  remembered  experiences,  the  first  experience 
being  accidental.  Now,  self-activity  is  a  property  of  all  animal 
and  plant  life.  Animals  exhibit  self-activity  in  their  appropri- 
ation of  other  forms  to  their  own  use,  eating  plants,  consuming 
oxygen,  mineral  matter,  etc.,  and  assimilating  these  into  their 
systems  and  converting  them  into  their  own  bodies.  Besides 
this,  they  move  and  feel,  and  in  many  cases  possess  quite  high 
intellectual  powers.  Plants  also  grow  according  to  hereditary 
patterns  by  reacting  upon  their  environment  in  definite,  pre- 
determined ways.  They  must  have  light,  water,  carbon,  salt, 
etc.,  and  they  sometimes  struggle  vigorously  for  existence. 
Witness  the  way  that  plants  turn  toward  the  light,  strengthen 
themselves  in  weak  places  to  withstand  storms,  tenaciously 
cling  to  and  twine  themselves  around  various  objects,  or  vigor- 
ously push  their  roots  through  obstacles,  even  through  stone 
walls  or  pieces  of  wood.  The  ideal  forms  which  these  beings 
attempt  to  assume  are,  of  course,  not  conscious  models,  but  nev- 

1  Baldwin,  Mental  Development,  pp.  272-274. 


328  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

ertheless  as  definite  as  many  hereditary  tendencies  of  man. 
"Nearly  all  of  the  process  of  self-activity,"  says  Dr.  Harris, 
"lies  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  In  the  case  of 
assimilation  (or  digestion),  mere  vitality,  all  is  unconscious."  1 

Subconscious  Memories. — The  great  difficulty  in  the  way 
of  granting  that  psychic  life  is  possessed  by  plants  and  micro- 
organisms (animal  or  plant)  arises  because  psychic  processes 
are  usually  considered  identical  with  consciousness.  Upon  a 
moment's  reflection  this  is  clearly  seen  to  be  incorrect.  A 
large  part  of  the  normal  human  psychic  life  is  manifestly 
subconscious,  and  then  to  certain  kinds  of  processes  we  can- 
not properly  ascribe  consciousness  as  a  property  at  all.  Con- 
sciousness is  a  cognitive,  an  intellectual  state.  It  means  an 
awareness  of  one's  own  mental  processes.  What  then  shall  we 
say  of  all  that  volitional  life  of  which  we  are  not  at  all  cognizant  ? 
Much  of  the  affective  life  also  never  comes  above  the  threshold 
of  consciousness.  It  often  requires  close  introspection  to  bring 
these  states  into  full  view.  Regarded  in  this  way  the  whole 
difficulty  disappears.  We  can  comprehend  that  all  proto- 
plasmic life  possesses  psychic  power,  but  not  necessarily  con- 
sciousness. 

The  discussion  presumably  needs  no  further  prolongation  to 
convince  that  all  living  organic  material  possesses  the  function 
of  memory;  not  necessarily  conscious  memory,  but  memory 
involving  registration  of  impressions,  conservation  of  the  modi- 
fied organism,  and  even  the  power  of  reacting  similarly  to  once- 
experienced  stimuli,  and  of  repeating  actions  once  initiated, 
even  accidentally.  Some  may  say  that  many  of  these  processes 
are  habits.  Even  so:  that  strengthens  the  case,  for  does  not 
memory  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  habits  ?  Here,  again,  the  uncon- 
sciously formed  habits  have  not  received  their  due  share  of 
consideration.  Even  human  beings  form  numberless  habits 
into  which  not  a  single  conscious  memory  has  entered.  The 
subconscious,  or  even  non-conscious,  organic  memories  have 

1  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  31.  For  the  best  and  fullest  dis- 
cussion of  self-activity,  see  that  work,  chap.  3. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     329 

been  the  sole  conservators  of  multitudes  of  experiences,  per- 
haps accidentally  initiated.  The  pedagogic  value  of  understand- 
ing this  thoroughly  ought,  also,  to  become  more  and  more  ap- 
parent. Its  relation  to  the  formation  of  habits  of  conduct  is 
of  inestimable  importance.1 

Physical  Basis  of  Memory. — We  have  seen  that  the  property 
of  retention  of  impressions  is  possessed  by  all  living  tissues. 
In  a  certain  sense  we  might  say  that  even  inorganic  matter 
sometimes  possesses  memory.  There  are  many  analogues  both 
of  registration  and  retention  in  purely  physical  substances.  If 
a  piece  of  white  paper  on  which  a  knife  is  placed  is  exposed  to 
the  actinic  rays  of  the  sun,  it  will,  if  kept  in  the  dark,  preserve 
the  image  of  the  knife  for  years.  The  photographer's  sensitive 
plate  records  and  retains  impressions  in  a  similar  manner.  The 
ocean  which  has  its  surface  ruffled  can  never  have  identically  the 
same  molecular  structure  which  it  previously  possessed.  "  Every 
impression,!'  says  Delbceuf,  "leaves  a  certain  ineffaceable 
trace;  that  is  to  say,  molecules  once  disarranged  and  forced  to 
vibrate  in  a  different  way  cannot  return  exactly  to  their  primitive 
state.  If  I  brush  the  surface  of  water  at  rest  with  a  feather,  the 
liquid  will  not  take  again  the  form  which  it  had  before;  it  may 
present  a  smooth  surface,  but  molecules  will  have  changed  places, 
and  an  eye  of  sufficient  power  would  see  traces  of  the  passage  of 
the  feather.  Organic  molecules  acquire  a  greater  or  less  degree 
of  aptitude  for  submitting  to  disarrangement.  No  doubt,  if  this 
same  exterior  force  did  not  again  act  upon  the  same  molecules, 
they  would  tend  to  return  to  their  natural  form;  but  it  is  far 
otherwise  if  the  action  is  several  times  repeated.  In  this  case 
they  lose,  little  by  little,  the  power  of  returning  to  their  original 
form,  and  become  more  and  more  closely  identified  with  that 
which  is  forced  upon  them,  until  this  becomes  natural  in  its  turn, 
and  they  again  obey  the  least  cause  that  will  set  them  in  vibra- 
tion." 2 

Dissolve  a  crystalline  salt,  say  sodium  chloride,  and  then  let 

'See  Kuhlmann,  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  i6:pp.  342-345. 
2  Theorie  generate  de  la  sensibilite,  p.  60. 


330  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

it  recrystallize.  The  crystals  will  not  resume  the  same  positions 
relative  to  each  other,  but  the  crystals  themselves  will  assume 
exactly  the  same  geometrical  form  as  previously.  Water 
crystallizes  in  definite  forms.  Why  is  this?  Who  shall  say 
that  it  is  not  at  least  a  form  of  heredity?  James  quotes  M. 
Leon  Dumont,  who  says  that  inorganic  substances  and  dead 
tissues  form  habits.  "Everyone  knows  how  a  garment,  after 
having  been  worn  a  certain  time,  clings  to  the  shape  of  the  body 
better  than  when  it  was  new;  there  has  been  a  change  in  the 
tissue,  and  this  change  is  a  new  habit  of  cohesion.  A  lock 
works  better  after  being  used  some  time;  at  the  outset  more 
force  was  required  to  overcome  certain  roughnesses  in  the 
mechanism.  The  overcoming  of  their  resistance  is  a  phenome- 
non of  habituation.  It  costs  less  trouble  to  fold  a  paper  when  it 
has  been  folded  already.  .  .  .  The  sounds  of  a  violin  improve 
by  use  in  the  hands  of  an  able  artist,  because  the  fibres  of  the 
wood  at  last .  contract  habits  of  vibration  conformed  to  har- 
monic relations."  1 

Analogy  of  the  Phonograph. — Lloyd  Morgan  compares  ana- 
logically retention  in  the  phonograph  to  physiological  retention. 
"  When  we  speak  into  a  phonograph  the  tones  of  our  voice  are  not 
hidden  away  in,  and  retained  by,  the  cylinder  of  the  instrument; 
but  the  wax  or  other  material  is  indented,  as  a  result  of  the  in- 
cidence of  the  sound  waves,  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  capable  of  re- 
producing similar  sound  waves  at  a  subsequent  time.  So,  too, 
the  brain  tissue  is  so  modified  by  the  nervous  disturbances  which 
are  the  accompaniments  of  an  impression  that,  under  appropri- 
ate neural  conditions,  they  tend  to  reproduce  similar  nervous 
disturbances  which  are  accompanied  in  consciousness  by  a  re- 
instatement of  the  impressions  in  the  form  of  an  idea.  It  is 
in  this  sense  only  that  we  may  speak  of  the  retention  of  ideas. 
.  .  .  The  ideas  as  such  have  ceased  to  exist;  but  the  brain 
structure  has  been  modified  in  such  a  way  that  under  appropriate 
conditions  similar  ideas  will  be  again  produced."  2 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  r,  p.  105. 

2  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology,  p.  106. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     331 

It  should  be  added,  however,  that  the  foregoing  is  but  an 
analogy,  and  most  analogies  are  more  useful  for  their  sugges- 
tiveness  than  for  the  exact  description  of  facts.  The  phono- 
graph record  lacks  the  real  essentials  of  organic  memories. 
There  is  no  organic  tendency  to  persist  in  a  given  condition  after 
a  record  is  made.  Repetition  of  the  same  stimulus  does  not 
increase  the  impression  made,  or  make  it  more  lasting.  The 
lapse  of  time  leaves  it  unchanged  if  kept  from  the  elements.  In 
the  case  of  the  phonographic  records,  if  a  series  of  impressions 
(b)  are  superadded  to  the  impressions  (a),  the  impressions  (a)  are 
lost  forever.  There  is  no  possibility  of  their  reproduction  in 
the  sense  that  experiences  are  reproduced  in  memory.  But  in 
all  organic  memories  there  is  a  something  within,  we  call  it  self- 
activity,  that  tends  to  arouse  the  same  tracts  and  to  increase  the 
impressions.  This  is  found  true  even  in  the  bacteria  exhibiting 
the  "stimulus-maintaining  or  circular  reaction."  It  is  also 
true  of  human  beings  when  the  mind  tends  to  think  over  what  it 
has  experienced.  We  have  also  noted  that  images  may  be 
awakened  from  within.  This  is  impossible  in  the  phonograph. 
Its  substance  is  inert,  lifeless.  Organic  tissue  has  what  we  call 
life — that  which  retains,  revives  experiences,  and  makes  for 
progress.  Evolution  would  be  impossible  without  organic 
memory.  A  good  illustration  of  organic  memory  without  con- 
sciousness is  seen  in  the  phenomena  of  scars.  Though  the  en- 
tire tissue  is  many  times  renewed,  yet  the  scar  persists.  This  is 
merely  because  of  the  law  of  growth.  In  all  living  organisms 
there  is  a  continual  renovation  or  replacement  of  tissue,  and 
the  new  growth,  particle  by  particle,  takes  the  place  of  the  worn- 
out  tissues.  Small-pox  pits  and  the  marks  of  other  infectious 
diseases  frequently  remain  through  life.  Bend  a  twig,  and  you 
cause  nutrition  to  be  supplied  in  the  malformed  direction  until 
it  has  completely  grown  to  the  new  mode. 

Race  Memories. — Every  highly  organized  being  that  lives 
to-day  is  the  resultant  of  the  infinitude  of  complex  modifica- 
tions that  have  been  exerted  upon  all  the  beings  that  have  pre- 
ceded it  in  its  line  of  ascent.  The  changes  have  been  more 


332  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

than  kaleidoscopic,  producing  innumerable  combinations;  they 
have  been  cumulative,  so  that  it  has  been  impossible  ever  to 
return  exactly  to  the  original  state.  Each  stimulus  leaves  an 
addition  besides  a  new  combination.  In  multitudes  of  cases 
the  combined  resultants  have  so  arranged  the  constituents  that 
new  forces  have  been  able  to  cause  the  organism  to  vibrate  in  a 
new  direction.  Witness  the  development  of  the  eye  and  the 
optical  centres  in  the  ascending  scale  of  animal  evolution.  The 
cumulative  memories  of  sensori-motor  adjustments  in  this  case 
produced  a  new  potentiality  or  power.  On  the  other  hand, 
evolution  may  be  regressive.  Organic  dispositions  or  vestiges 
may  become  so  overgrown  through  disuse,  or  through  the  ac- 
centuated use  of  some  other  function,  that  the  possibility  of  func- 
tioning in  the  given  direction  may  become  entirely  obsolescent. 
Notice  the  decadence  of  the  power  of  sight  in  the  mole  and  many 
cave  animals.  Vestigial  organs,  as  the  vermiform  appendix, 
the  gill  slits  in  the  neck,  or  atavistic  recrudescences,  also  attest 
the  life  in  far-off  ages  still  struggling  to  reproduce  itself  through 
organic  memories. 

Not  only  structure  but  function  gives  evidence  of  the  cumula- 
tive race  memories.  The  chick  possesses  at  birth  wonderful 
powers  of  perceptive  co-ordination  such  as  we  know  could  not 
be  attained  in  its  lifetime.  Neither  were  they  learned  during 
the  period  of  incubation.  They  were  accumulated  during  the 
lifetime  of  countless  generations  of  which  a  given  chick  is  a  de- 
scendant. These  ready-made  powers  we  call  instinct.  But,  in 
other  words,  they  are  inherited  neural  memories  awaiting  ex- 
citation by  racially  familiar  stimuli.  The  question  will,  there- 
fore, naturally  arise  here  as  to  why  man  with  his  wonderfully 
expanded  memory  does  not  exhibit  more  racial  memories.  This 
subject  is  more  fully  treated  in  the  chapter  on  Instinct,  and  it 
will  merely  be  remarked  here  that  it  is  because  of  the  exceeding 
complexity  of  man's  memories  that  they  are  not  evidenced  in- 
stinctively. Furthermore,  most  of  our  important  memories  are 
never  awakened  in  exactly  the  same  character  in  which  they 
were  registered.  They  are  awakened  only  as  totalities,  and  not 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     333 

as  individual  experiences.  In  individual  life,  to  illustrate,  man 
strives  to  remember  not  isolated  details,  but  rather  generaliza- 
tions— conceptual  notions.  We  remember  the  content  of  con- 
cepts, without  being  under  the  necessity  of  clothing  them  in  any 
particular  form.  Unfortunately  the  untrained  person  thinks  of 
the  form  when  memory  is  mentioned.  But  the  form  in  which 
an  idea  is  clothed  is  by  no  means  the  most  important  part  of  the 
memory.  The  trained  psychologist,  for  example,  can  tell  in- 
stantly, i.  £.,  he  can  remember,  the  definition  of  "perception," 
but  the  chances  are  that  he  will  not  word  it  twice  alike.  Like- 
wise man  has  instincts  or  inherited  dispositions  for  subjects  or 
fields  of  activity  rather  than  for  the  particular  form  of  the  subject 
or  field  of  activity.  Thus,  man  truly  inherits  a  capacity  for 
mathematics,  but  it  may  be  put  in  arithmetical  or  geometrical 
terms,  in  English  or  Chinese  characters.  Similarly  a  capacity 
for  music  is  inherited.  If  this  is  doubted  by  any  one,  let  him 
try  to  teach  a  dog,  a  pig,  or  a  monkey  to  compute,  to  sing,  to  talk, 
and  see  if  he  will  not  wish  for  hereditary  tendencies  to  begin 
with.  The  entire  discussion  of  instinct  and  heredity  was  a  con- 
tribution to  the  subject  of  race  memories,  and  consequently  a 
brief  paragraph  in  this  connection  is  sufficient. 

Physiological  Conception  of  Reproduction. — Physiologically 
the  simplest  case  of  reproduction  of  previous  states  is  brought 
about  when  the  nervous  system  is  awakened  by  the  same  stimu- 
lus which  gave  rise  to  the  original  mental  state — sensation, 
perception,  etc.  That  is,  recall  or  remembering,  physiologi- 
cally considered,  is  simply  the  reinstatement  of  processes  which 
have  been  experienced  at  some  antecedent  time.  Thus,  if  a 
stimulus  a  has  impinged  upon  an  end  organ  with  a  certain 
rapidity  of  light  or  sound  vibrations,  or  with  certain  mechanical 
or  chemical  reactions,  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  given  mental 
state  A,  theoretically,  in  its  last  analysis,  to  recall  A  at  some  fut- 
ure time  the  stimulus  a  must  be  repeated,  when  it  will  give  rise 
to  a  mental  state  A  l.  This  second  state  would  be  so  similar  to  A 
as  to  be  interpreted  as  identical  with  it.  In  truth  it  cannot  be 
exactly  the  same,  for  the  nervous  system  receiving  and  recording 


334  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

the  impression  is  not  the  same  as  it  was  when  it  received  the  im- 
pression interpreted  as  A.  Again,  let  us  say  that  the  nervous 
system  which  received  the  stimulus  a  had  been  in  its  history 
disturbed  by  a  number  of  shocks  producing  a  resultant  which  we 
will  designate  as  .2V.  Therefore,  if  b  impinges  upon  the  end 
organ,  it  will  be  the  nervous  system  A^+the  effect  from  a  instead 
of  N  which  reacts  to  the  stimulus  b.  This  conclusion  must 
follow  our  acceptance  of  the  physiological  interpretation  of  the 
doctrine  of  apperception,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy. 

On  the  general  physiological  aspect  of  retention  and  repro- 
duction Kay  writes:  "It  seems  highly  probable,  then,  that  the 
recalled  sensation  or  idea  is  occasioned  by  a  repetition  of  the 
same  form  of  motion  as  attended  the  original  sensation.  The 
sensation  of  red  is  produced  by  a  certain  kind  of  motion,  and 
the  idea  (memory)  of  red  is  in  all  probability  produced  by 
the  same  kind  of  motion.  This  doctrine  is  as  old  as  Aristotle, 
who  viewed  the  representations  of  memory  or  imagination  '  as 
merely  the  movements  continued  in  the  organ  of  internal  sense 
after  the  moving  object  itself  has  been  withdrawn.'"  *  Spencer 
says:  "To  recall  a  motion  just  made  with  the  arm  is  to  have  a 
feeble  repetition  of  those  internal  states  which  accompanied  the 
motion — is  to  have  an  incipient  excitement  of  those  nerves  which 
were  strongly  excited  during  the  motion."  2  Ribot  also  main- 
tains that  the  nervous  processes  in  perception  and  remembrance 
are  the  same.  He  cites  the  well-known  experiment  of  Wundt, 
who  found  that  the  mere  remembrance  of  a  color  produced  the 
same  fatigue  and  also,  what  is  more  striking  and  conclusive,  that 
the  same  complementary  color  appeared  as  when  fatigued  from 
viewing  the  original.  Baldwin,  in  his  discussion  of  the  physical 
basis  of  memory  and  association,  says  that  memory  on  the  bodily 
side  is  "the  reinstatement  in  the  nervous  centres  of  the  processes 
concerned  in  the  original  perception,  sensation,  etc.  ...  So  the 
function  of  the  reinstatement  of  processes  in  the  act  of  memory 

1  Memory:  What  It  Is  and  How  to  Improve  It,  p.  31. 

2  Quoted  by  Kay,  op.  cit.,  p.  31. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY   PROCESSES     335 

is,  in  respect  to  the  tendency  to  action  which  these  processes 
arouse,  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  processes  of  percep- 
tion, sensation,  event,  which  furnished  the  original  of  the 
memory."  1 

Myriads  of  ideas  received  will  never  have  all  the  conditions 
for  their  recall  repeated.  Either  similar  stimuli  will  not  occur, 
or  they  will  not  be  suggestive  because  of  their  weakness  or  be- 
cause of  long  lapse  of  time.  This  explanation  suffices,  how- 
ever, for  the  reproduction  of  only  the  most  simple  and  elemental 
states.  Were  this  the  sole  condition  of  reproduction,  we  should 
be  limited  to  those  ideas  in  which  the  original  stimulus  re- 
appeared. Our  mental  lives  would  be  exceedingly  circum- 
scribed and  simple,  even  though  a  certain  number  of  "circular" 
or  "stimulus-maintaining  reactions"  occurred  as  are  explained  in 
the  chapter  on  imitation.  Psychical  life  wrould  scarcely  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  perceptive  consciousness,  for  all  our  perceptions  are 
complexes  formed  out  of  multiple  associations.  These  associa- 
tions are  at  the  basis  of  our  complex  memories,  and  explain  how 
a  given  object  of  consciousness  may  be  recalled  without  the 
necessity  of  the  presence  of  the  original  stimulus.  In  per- 
ception a  given  object  of  thought  becomes  associated  with  di- 
verse other  objects  as  a,  b,  c,  d,  e,f,  etc.,  which  are  similar,  con- 
tiguous, contemporary,  a  part  of,  etc.,  and  the  presence  of  a 
stimulus  which  causes  the  reinstatement  of  any  one  of  the  elements 
of  the  series  at  once  awakens  nerve-tracts  which  have  previously 
been  discharged  along  with  the  given  one,  and  there  is  a  tend- 
ency for  all  the  others  to  be  discharged.  Which  one  is  ex- 
ploded will  depend  upon  the  frequency,  recency,  contiguity,  etc., 
of  previous  associations.  This  will  all  be  explained  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  association,  and  needs  here  to  be  merely  suggested. 

Persistence  of  Memories. — "How  long  do  memories  persist?" 
is  a  pertinent  question,  and  one  frequently  raised.  In  the  fore- 
going discussion  it  has  virtually  been  assumed,  though  rather 
disguised,  that  impressions  once  made  persist  throughout  the  nor- 
mal life  of  the  individual.  We  shall  here  attempt  to  show  that 

1  Mental  Development,  p.  280. 


336  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

this  is  true,  and  even  go  beyond  that  to  assert  that  they  are  as 
eternal  as  the  life  of  the  individual.  If  life  is  propagated,  the 
memories  tend  to  persist  in  the  progeny.  This  need  not  startle, 
for  it  is  only  a  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of  heredity.  Ordinarily 
the  theory  of  heredity  considers  only  the  persistence  of  race 
habits,  but  it  must  be  understood  that  memories  are  transmitted 
even  though  they  have  not  attained  to  the  definiteness,  and  to  the 
reflex  stage,  of  habits. 

I  fancy  the  reader  will  here  interpose  a  question,  as  several 
hundreds  of  my  students  have  done.  They  say,  "How  can  it  be 
that  memories  are  permanent?  Our  experiences  tell  us  that  we 
forget  myriads  of  things.  One  who  never  forgot  would  be  more 
than  a  prodigy:  he  would  be  superhuman."  Just  a  moment. 
I  have  not  asserted  that  things  are  not  forgotten.  My  own  dis- 
comfiture on  forgetting  the  spool  of  thread  or  the  marketing, 
or  to  mail  my  letters;  my  embarrassment  on  awkwardly  trying 
to  recall  the  name  of  a  student  whom  I  have  previously  met;  my 
careful  avoidance  of  calling  certain  people  by  name,  because  I  can 
not  think  of  the  right  one:  all  these  and  scores  of  other  cases 
would  readily  rise  up  to  contradict  such  a  statement,  if  ever  I 
should  make  one.  But  I  have  not  said  that  we  never  forget. 
I  have  said  that  memories  are  permanent,  in  the  sense  that  the 
records  are  ineffaceable.  It,  however,  has  not  been  asserted 
that  all  experiences  can  be  recalled.  It  is  not  contended  that  all 
memories  are  complete.  The  point  intended  to  be  made  here  is 
that  every  experience,  no  matter  how  great  or  how  small,  how 
significant  or  unimportant,  enters  into  the  complex  of  one's  life  and 
tends  to  bias  his  conduct  ever  afterward.  Every  thought,  every 
emotion,  every  impulse,  no  matter  how  noble  or  ignoble,  how 
uplifting  or  debasing,  how  idle  or  important,  leaves  its  inefface- 
able trace.  The  student  goes  from  the  class-room  a  different 
individual  from  what  he  entered;  his  contact  with  his  teacher 
has  influenced  him  for  good  or  for  ill,  imperceptible  though  it 
may  be.  These  are  solemn  thoughts,  disturbing  to  the  one 
whose  experiences  have  been  unfortunate;  reassuring  to  the  one 
with  more  happy  experiences. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY   PROCESSES     337 

Biological  Conception  of  Recall  and  of  Forgetting. — It  has 
already  been  shown  that  whenever  a  stimulus  re-traverses  the 
same  path  which  it  has  before  traversed,  the  process  of  reproduc- 
tion takes  place.  If  the  previous  impression  was  strong  enough, 
vivid  enough,  and  if  sufficiently  recent,  it  is  recognized  as  a 
former  experience.  In  this  case  there  is  complete  memory. 
But  the  conditions  for  reawakening  the  same  nerve-tract  are 
that  the  same  or  a  very  similar  stimulus  must  impinge  upon  the 
end  organ,  or  that  a  stimulus  must  occur  which  will  arouse 
tracts  or  centres  which  have  been  associated  with  the  given  centre. 
As  James  says,  "  The  cause  both  of  retention  and  of  recollection 
\re  production}  is  the  law  of  habit  in  the  nervous  system,  working 
as  it  does  in  the  association  of  ideas."  And  again,  "The  ma- 
chinery of  recall  [reproduction]  is  thus  the  same  as  the  ma- 
chinery of  association,  and  the  machinery  of  association,  as  we 
know,  is  nothing  but  the  elementary  law  of  habit  in  the  nerve- 
centres."  In  another  place,  in  speaking  of  the  processes  going 
on  he  says:  "When  slumbering,  these  paths  are  the  condition  oj 
retention;  when  active,  they  are  the  condition  of  recall"  1  By  a 
path  all  we  mean  is,  that  a  certain  arrangement  of  molecular 
structure  has  taken  place  so  that  nerve  currents  are  conducted 
from  one  centre  to  another  with  greater  facility  than  before  the 
rearrangement.  We  know,  for  example,  that  currents  travel 
better  lengthwise  of  the  nerve  fibres  than  crosswise.  Through 
ages  these  have  become  good  paths  of  conduction.  The  associa- 
tion fibres  of  the  brain  and  the  phenomena  of  association  teach 
us  that  homogeneous  tissues  have  to  become  differentiated  be- 
fore they  become  very  efficient. 

A  great  variety  of  changes  is  produced  by  the  numberless 
incoming  stimuli  which  are  continually  impinging  upon  the  end 
organs.  After  a  given  stimulus  a  has  affected  the  neural  sub- 
stance and  opened  a  tract  a >  x,  usually  before  the  same 

stimulus  is  repeated  and  deepens  the  impression,  many  stimuli 
of  a  different  character  have  modified  the  nervous  structure  in 
such  a  way  as  partially  to  rearrange  the  tract  a—  — >  .v.  It  may 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I,  pp.  653-655. 


338  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

be  that  the  molecular  structure  is  rearranged  so  that  a  new  tract 
b —  —  >  y  crosses  through  the  tract  a —  —  >  x.  Suppose  these, 
in  turn,  to  be  influenced  by  many  other  stimuli.  A  "modified 
modification,"  which  may  be  represented  in  a  purely  diagram- 
matic way  by  the  accompanying  figure,  finally  results  from  the 
action  of  all  the  combined  stimuli.  Because  of  these  modi- 
fications by  new  impressions  from  without  and  from  the  neural 
changes  brought  about  by  associations  from  within,  many  im- 
pressions, sooner  or  later,  will  become  so  obliterated  that  they 
can  never  be  recalled.  However,  if  we  believe  in  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  and  in  apperception,  we  must  conclude  that  every 


FIG.  29. — Diagrammatic  representation  of  neural 
effects  produced  by  manifold  stimuli. 

impression  has  modified  the  nervous  system  in  such  a  way  that 
every  new  impulse  must  take  a  different  path  because  of  it. 
The  pail  of  water  is  molecularly  different  after  the  addition  of 
each  drop,  even  though  no  molar  change  is  perceptible.  In 
fact,  does  not  the  law  of  gravitation  teach  us  that  every  change  in 
every  particle  of  matter  in  the  universe  affects  every  other  par- 
ticle? Under  certain  conditions,  explained  under  "degenera- 
tion and  revival,"  memories  apparently  completely  obliterated 
may  be  reinstated. 

There  are  many  facts  of  psychic  life  that  help  to  prove  the 
theory  of  the  permanent  retention  of  these  once-made  nerve- 
tracts,  which  we  may  assert  have  permanent  possibilities  of  re- 
call. To  illustrate,  how  many  of  us  have  revived  memories  of 
scenes  and  events  long  since  forgotten,  judged  by  ordinary  tests, 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     339 

by  going  back  to  the  places  where  the  impressions  were  gained  ? 
Going  back  to  childhood's  home  after  long  years  of  absence 
brings  a  flood  of  recollections  that  never  would  have  been  re- 
vived had  it  not  been  for  the  proper  stimuli.  Those  things  were 
learned  in  connection  with  certain  associations,  and  the  old 
stimuli,  or  their  associates,  are  absolutely  necessary  for  their 
recall.  If  the  impressions  have  been  vague  or  fleeting,  even  the 
presence  of  the  stimuli  would  not  serve  to  revive  the  memories. 
An  important  pedagogical  truth  may  be  drawn  from  these  facts. 
Children  learn  their  lessons  in  a  particular  order,  or  in  a  par- 
ticular way.  The  teacher  often  asks  questions  on  the  lesson 
which,  though  pertinent  and  intelligible  to  older  people,  have  no 
meaning  to  the  children  and  do  not  serve  as  "suggesting  strings," 
to  use  Carpenter's  phrase,  in  reproducing  the  lesson.  The 
teacher  must  take  care  to  question  and  to  extend  explanations 
in  the  same  lines  of  association  as  are  in  the  children's  minds. 
Otherwise  discouragement  will  come  frequently,  because  the  re- 
sults seem  so  poor.  For  small  children  at  least,  and  probably 
all  through  the  college  course,  the  one  who  teaches  the  class,  not 
an  outsider,  should  be  the  examiner.  The  superintendent  is 
liable  to  ask  questions  in  an  entirely  different  way  and  no  "sug- 
gesting strings"  are  pulled.  Even  in  college  oftentimes  I  ask  a 
question  which  is  an  application  of  something  the  students  have 
learned.  I  get  no  response,  and  gradually  change  the  ques- 
tion. All  at  once  some  student  exclaims,  "Why,  yes;  I  knew 
that  all  the  time!"  No  "suggesting  string"  was  at  first  pulled. 
Great  care  is  necessary  in  setting  examination  questions,  even 
in  high  school  and  college.  The  questions  should  be  so  framed 
that  they  will  be  sure  to  suggest  the  line  of  answers  desired. 
When  a  question  is  carelessly  constructed  the  student  frequently 
guesses  at  its  meaning,  and  often  writes  on  another  question. 
The  more  advanced  the  student,  the  more  general,  of  course, 
may  be  the  question. 

Revival  after  Long  Lapses. — Carpenter1  says  that  "There  is 
very  strong  physiological  reason  to  believe  that  this  'storing-up 

1  Mental  Physiology,  pp.  436  et  seq. 


340  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

of  ideas'  in  the  memory  is  the  psychological  expression  of 
physical  changes  in  the  cerebrum,  by  which  ideational  states  are 
permanently  registered  or  recorded;  so  that  any  'trace'  left  by 
them,  although  remaining  so  long  outside  the  'sphere  of  con- 
sciousness' as  to  have  seemed  non-existent,  may  be  revived 
again  in  full  vividness  under  certain  special  conditions — just  as 
the  invisible  impression  left  upon  the  sensitive  paper  of  the 
photographer  is  developed  into  a  picture  by  the  application  of 
particular  chemical  re-agents.  For  in  no  other  way  does  it  seem 
possible  to  account  for  the  fact  of  very  frequent  occurrence,  that 
the  presence  of  a  fever-poison  in  the  blood — perverting  the 
normal  activity  of  the  cerebrum,  so  as  to  produce  delirium — 
brings  within  the  'sphere  of  consciousness'  the  'traces'  of 
mental  experiences  long  since  past,  of  which,  in  the  ordinary 
condition,  there  was  no  remembrance  whatever.  Thus,  the 
revival,  in  the  delirium  of  fever,  of  the  remembrances  of  a  lan- 
guage once  familiarly  known,  but  long  forgotten,  has  been  often 
noticed."  Dr.  Carpenter  supports  his  theory  by  citing  a  num- 
ber of  cases  gleaned  from  prominent  medical  authorities,  some 
of  which  are  here  subjoined.  "An  old  Welsh  man-servant,  who 
had  left  Wales  at  a  very  early  age,  and  had  lived  with  one  branch 
or  another  of  this  gentleman's  family  for  fifty  years,  had  so  en- 
tirely forgotten  his  native  language,  that  when  any  of  his  Welsh 
relatives  came  to  see  him,  and  spoke  in  the  tongue  most  familiar 
to  them,  he  was  quite  unable  to  understand  it;  but  having  an 
attack  of  fever  when  he  was  past  seventy,  he  talked  Welsh 
fluently  in  his  delirium.  ...  A  Lutheran  clergyman  of  Phila- 
delphia informed  Dr.  Rush  that  Germans  and  Swedes,  of  whom 
he  had  a  considerable  number  in  his  congregation,  when  near 
death  always  prayed  in  their  native  languages;  though  some 
of  them,  he  was  confident,  had  not  spoken  these  languages  for 
fifty  or  sixty  years." 

"The  following  case,  mentioned  by  Coleridge,  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  on  record:  its  distinguishing  feature  being  that 
the  patient  could  never  have  known  anything  of  the  meaning  of 
the  sentences  she  uttered:  .  .  'In  a  Roman  Catholic  town  in 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY   PROCESSES     341 

Germany,  a  young  woman,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
was  seized  with  a  fever,  and  was  said  by  the  priests  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  a  devil,  because  she  was  heard  talking  Latin,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew.  Whole  sheets  of  her  ravings  were  written  out, 
and  found  to  consist  of  sentences  intelligible  in  themselves,  but 
having  slight  connection  with  each  other.  Of  her  Hebrew 
sayings,  only  a  few  could  be  traced  to  the  Bible,  and  most 
seemed  to  be  in  the  Rabbinical  dialect.  All  trick  was  out  of 
the  question;  the  woman  was  a  simple  creature;  there  was  no 
doubt  as  to  the  fever.  It  was  long  before  any  explanation,  save 
that  of  demoniacal  possession,  could  be  obtained.  At  last  the 
mystery  was  unveiled  by  a  physician,  who  determined  to  trace 
back  the  girl's  history,  and  who,  after  much  trouble,  discovered 
that  at  the  age  of  nine  she  had  been  charitably  taken  by  an 
old  Protestant  pastor,  a  great  Hebrew  scholar,  in  whose  house 
she  lived  till  his  death.  On  further  inquiry  it  appeared  to  have 
been  the  old  man's  custom  for  years  to  walk  up  and  down  a 
passage  of  his  house  into  which  the  kitchen  opened,  and  to  read 
to  himself  with  a  loud  voice  out  of  his  books.  The  books  were 
ransacked,  and  among  them  were  found  several  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  Fathers,  together  with  a  collection  of  Rabbinical  writings. 
In  these  works  so  many  of  the  passages  taken  down  at  the  young 
woman's  bedside  were  identified,  that  there  could  be  no  reason- 
able doubt  as  to  their  source.'"  1 

The  words  of  Dr.  Carpenter  confirm  this  view.  He  says:2 
"As  our  ideas  are  thus  linked  in  'trains'  or  'series,'  which 
further  inosculate  with  each  other  like  the  branch  lines  of  a 
railway  or  the  ramifications  of  an  artery,  so,  it  is  considered,  an 
idea  which  has  been  'hidden  in  the  obscure  recesses  of  the 
mind'  for  years — perhaps  for  a  lifetime — and  which  seems  to 
have  completely  faded  out  of  the  conscious  memory  (having 
never  either  recurred  spontaneously,  or  been  found  capable  of 
recall  by  volitional  recollection),  may  be  reproduced,  as  by  the 
touching  of  a  spring,  through  a  nexus  of  suggestions,  which  we 

1  Biographic  Literaria,  edit.  1847,  vol.  I,  p.  117. 
3  Mental  Physiology,  p.  429. 


342  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

can  sometimes  trace  out  continuously,  but  of  which  it  does  not 
seem  necessary  that  all  the  intermediate  steps  should  fall  within 
our  cognizance."  Carpenter  quotes  a  paragraph  from  Dr. 
Abercrombie's  records  to  substantiate  his  position.  "A  lady, 
in  the  last  stage  of  chronic  disease,  was  carried  from  London  to 
a  lodging  in  the  country : — there  her  infant  daughter  was  taken  to 
visit  her,  and,  after  a  short  interview,  carried  back  to  town. 
The  lady  died  a  few  days  after,  and  the  daughter  grew  up 
without  any  recollection  of  her  mother,  till  she  was  of  mature  age. 
At  this  time  she  happened  to  be  taken  into  the  room  in  which  her 
mother  died,  without  knowing  it  to  have  been  so: — she  started 
on  entering  it,  and,  when  a  friend  who  was  with  her  asked  the 
cause  of  her  agitation,  replied,  '  I  have  a  distinct  impression  of 
having  been  in  this  room  before,  and  that  a  lady  who  lay  in  that 
corner  and  seemed  very  ill,  leaned  over  me  and  wept.' "  * 

An  extended  purposive  study  of  early  memories,  made  by 
Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall,2  gives  many  definite  examples  illustrat- 
ing the  theory  just  advanced.  He  writes:  "I  undertook,  as  a 
vacation  diversion,  a  more  or  less  systematic  exploration  of  all 
the  farms  I  had  ever  known,  noting  on  the  spot  everything  re- 
membered from  early  boyhood.  I  climbed  in  through  the 
windows  of  abandoned  houses  and  explored  them  from  roof  to 
cellar  in  quest  of  vestiges;  sat  alone  sometimes  for  hours  trying 
to  recall  vanished  spots,  and  to  identify  objects  which  I  knew 
must  have  once  been  familiar.  Thus  during  the  month  I  noted 
between  four  and  five  thousand  points,  sometimes  revisiting  the 
same  scene  to  observe  the  effects  of  recurrence,  and  from  it  all  I 
gathered  some  general  impressions  of  memory,  quite  new  to 
me."  On  the  first  farm  visited  he  had  lived  during  the  first 
two  and  one-half  years  of  life.  Although  he  had  driven  past  it 
several  times,  he  had  not  been  upon  the  place  for  nearly  fifty 
years.  He  states  that  thousands  of  memories  were  revived  by 
the  recurrence  of  once-experienced  stimuli  and  their  associates. 
Space  will  permit  recounting  but  a  few  of  them. 

1  Intellectual  Powers,  5th  ed.,  p.  120. 

2  "Note  on  Early  Memories,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  6:    pp.  485-512' 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY   PROCESSES     343 

Out  of  all  of  the  very  many  objects  and  incidents  that  were 
impressed  upon  his  mind  as  a  child,  almost  nothing  was  defi- 
nitely recalled.  The  only  clear  and  distinct  memory  was  of  a 
red,  upright,  wooden  spout  with  a  wheel  attached,  through 
which  he  had  poured  water.  Of  this  object  he  had  often 
thought.  Another  memory,  certain  though  indistinct,  was 
revived  by  "the  rocky  end  of  a  knoll"  with  which  there  "came 
an  almost  imperative  association  of  cows  being  milked  by  a 
woman."  He  found  that  the  hired  man's  wife  had  milked  the 
cows  there.  But  there  were  many  associations  that  bore  marks 
of  familiarity,  of  which  he  writes:  "I  have  little  doubt  but  that 
if  I  had  met  that  ensemble  of  landscape  features  unexpectedly  in 
some  far  country  I  should  have  been  struck  by  some  reverbera- 
tions of  reminiscence  perhaps  akin  to  those  Plato  connected  with 
a  previous  state  of  existence."  Not  only  were  old  places  recog- 
nized, but  many  incidents  once  associated,  but  now  no  longer 
present,  were  recalled.  Who  has  not  had  a  strange  feeling  of  fa- 
miliarity in  some  locality  or  with  some  occurrence  to  which  he 
believes  himself  a  stranger?  It  may  have  proved  to  be  a  real 
memory  or  it  may  have  been  merely  a  similar  experience  serving 
to  recall  old  experiences.  "A  kind  of  open  glen  in  the  woods, 
for  instance,  recalled  nothing,  but  gave  a  very  extraordinary  and 
unwonted  sense  of  pleasure  and  of  previousness.  On  coming 
to  a  knoll  upon  a  vast  heap  of  stones  near  trees  I  found  myself 
articulating,  'Why  yes,  of  course  there  was  something  like  that.' 
.  .  .  The  sudden  smell  of  catnip,  the  gloominess  of  an  old  wall 
of  very  black  stones,  a  deep  well  .beneath  the  kitchen,  the 
abundant  and  peculiar  moss  on  the  ledges,  were  other  things 
that  brought  a  distinct  sense  of  familiarity  but  no  trace  of  any- 
thing like  memory." 

Degeneration  and  Revival. — The  revival  of  memories  depends 
upon  stimuli  suitable  and  sufficient  to  make  old  paths  function. 
Many  memories  may  never  be  reinstated  for  the  lack  of  such 
stimuli.  The  reinstatement  of  memories  in  old  age  and  in  sick- 
ness will  not  be  so  readily  understood,  and  may  need  argument 
to  convince.  That  such  occurrences  arise,  many  facts  attest. 


344  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Examples  of  such  have  been  quoted  above.  Why  these  occur 
remains  to  be  explained.  It  is  a  well-established  neurological 
law  that  in  degeneration  of  tissues  during  disease  or  old  age  the 
first  tissues  to  disintegrate  are  those  most  recently  formed ;  while 
the  older,  first-formed  .are  the  last  to  be  attacked.  This  is 
easily  explained  by  reference  to  purely  physical  and  chemical 
laws.  A  substance  that  is  simple  is  relatively  stable,  while  those 
which  are  more  complex  are  correspondingly  unstable,  and  the 
more  complex  the  substance  the  more  liable  to  disintegration. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  .nervous  tissue,  being  exceedingly  com- 
plex, is  the  most  unstable  compound  in  existence.  It  is, 
in  fact,  so  complex  that  no  chemist  feels  safe  in  asserting  the 
definite  composition  and  atomic  relationships.  Here  we  see 
why  nervous  tissue  is  peculiarly  fitted  structurally  for  the  func- 
tions which  it  subserves.  Compare  it  in  composition  and 
function  with  fat  or  muscle.  Were  the  nervous  tissue  not  so 
thoroughly  protected  it  would  be  the  first  tissue  to  go  into  dis- 
solution. Of  the  nervous  system  itself  medical  authorities  tell 
us  that  the  first  part  to  be  attacked  in  disease  is  the  cerebrum, 
the  medulla  and  pons  following  next,  while  the  cord  is  the 
last  to  be  attacked.  This  law  is  known  as  that  of  descending 
degeneration. 

We  have  already  mentioned  that  in  disease  many  of  the  most 
recent  impressions  are  entirely  forgotten,  while  others  that  are 
remote  and  early  formed  are  perfectly  fresh  and  remarkably 
vivid.  It  is  also  well  known  that  in  old  age  the  early  memories 
are  the  ones  that  persist.  Old  age  is  a  form  of  disease.  It  im- 
plies descending  degeneration  in  a  large  sense.  Life  disintegrates 
until  only  the  so-called  second  childhood  is  left.  Putting  to- 
gether the  law  of  descending  degeneration  and  the  perfectly  ob- 
vious facts  of  the  return  of  old  memories  and  the  loss  of  recent 
ones,  we  know  that  the  given  order  of  psychical  decay  ensues  be- 
cause the  neural  structures  formed  by  the  most  recent  psychoses 
are  the  first  to  decay.  As  previously  mentioned,  the  newer 
structures  act  as  inhibitors  or  insulators  of  nervous  material, 
preventing  the  flow  of  nervous  energy  in  certain  directions. 


THE  NATURE   OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     345 

These  later  structures  become  diseased,  the  inhibiting  force  is 
removed,  allowing  the  older  structures  opportunity  to  function 
again.  This  they  do  if  suitable  stimuli  are  presented.  These 
stimuli  may  come  from  within  or  from  without.  The  old  man 
may  not  think  continually  of  the  scenes  of  his  boyhood,  but  just 
give  him  the  cue  and  see  how  the  ideas  will  cause  the  awakening 
of  slumbering  brain-tracts  and  in  turn  how  the  old  neuroses  re- 
instate old  psychoses.  Habits  are  the  last  functions  to  be  for- 
gotten. There  are  two  reasons  for  this:  (a)  The  processes  have 
been  so  long  and  frequently  continued  that  the  neural  structure 
has  grown  to  that  mode,  (b)  The  spinal  cord  is  the  oldest  for- 
mation of  the  nervous  system  in  racial  development— funda- 
mental— and  hence  the  last  to  succumb.  When  all  other 
functions  are  deranged  and  unbalanced  in  the  nervous  wreck 
or  in  the  demented,  the  early  habits  still  persist  intact.  In  the 
decline  of  memory  during  old  age  or  in  nervous  debility,  proper 
names  are  the  first  to  be  lost.  They  are  special — accessory — • 
used  only  occasionally,  and  largely  recently  learned,  and  hence 
their  application  is  seldom  automatic.  Other  words  are  so 
habitually  used  that  the  chain  of  sounds  becomes  automatically 
reinstated. 

Individual  Differences. — There  are  very  great  differences  of 
memory  among  individuals.  There  are  persons  who  acquire 
readily,  but  forget  quickly;  those  that  acquire  with  difficulty, 
but  retain  accurately  and  tenaciously.  Again,  there  are  fortu- 
nate persons  who  acquire  easily  and  retain  with  great  persistence 
and  fidelity,  as  well  as  some  who  work  hard  to  acquire  only  to  be 
chagrined  on  having  what  is  learned  evaporate  almost  as  soon  as 
learned.  When  one  remembers  things  learned  through  a  given 
sense  better  than  what  is  learned  through  the  other  senses,  we  say 
he  has  a  certain  "  type  "  of  memory.  There  are  types  of  memory 
corresponding  to  all  of  the  senses.  Some  persons  possess  one 
type,  some  another.  Again,  there  are  persons  who  have  memo- 
ries that  vary  within  the  realm  of  a  given  sense.  There  are  also 
all  degrees  of  variations,  from  the  special  power  of  remember- 
ing remarkably,  certain  words,  certain  forms,  certain  sounds, 


346  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

or  certain  colors,  up  to  the  very  exaggerated  cases  which  we 
find  in  abnormal  persons,  or  the  mathematical,  musical,  and 
other  "prodigies." 

There  are  also  differences  in  the  same  individual  at  different 
stages  of  development.  Children  are  usually  thought  to  have 
better  memories  than  adults.  This  view  is  hardly  correct, 
however.  Children's  memories  are  different  from  adults', 
Children  acquire,  even  mechanical  associations,  more  slowly 
than  adults.  They  retain  mechanical  associations  better  when 
once  learned,  but  adults  retain  thoughtful  associations  better. 
Both  the  power  of  registering  and  retaining  thoughtfully  increase 
up  to  about  twenty-five  years.  The  powers  are  relatively  sta- 
tionary then  until  about  fifty,  when  a  gradual  decline  sets  in.1 
These  various  differences  suggest  a  recognition  of  different 
methods  of  teaching  children  of  different  ages,  and  also  an 
adaptation  of  means  and  methods  for  persons  of  different  mem- 
ory types.  Further  discussion  of  the  subject  will  be  found  in 
connection  with  the  treatment  of  individual  differences,  memory 
training,  and  of  imagination. 

What  Experiences  Are  Remembered. — Of  how  great  intensity 
must  sensations  or  perceptions  be  in  order  to  be  remembered 
is  a  question  that  naturally  rises.  No  stimulus  produces  much 
of  a  sensation  until  of  sufficient  intensity  to  rise  above  the 
threshold,  i.  e.,  to  enter  into  consciousness.  The  threshold 
differs  for  different  senses  and  in  different  persons.  Vibra- 
tions of  a  sounding  body  must  be  as  rapid  as  eight  or  ten  per 
second,  and  for  most  persons  as  high  as  twenty-four  per  second, 
in  order  to  produce  a  sensation.  Beyond  fifty  thousand  a  sec- 
ond they  can  no  longer  be  detected.  However,  it  is  quite  prob- 
able that  many  stimuli  which  do  not  produce  recognizable  sen- 
sations have  some  effect  upon  the  nervous  organism  and  upon 
the  mind.  And  just  as  every  physical  influence  in  the  course  of 
evolution  has  modified  things  within  its  scope,  so  we  believe 
that  all  stimuli  of  sufficient  intensity  to  modify  nervous  matter  or 

1  See  Meumann,  Vorlesungen  zur  Einfiihrung  in  die  Experimer.telle  Pddagegik . 
pp.  189-203. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MEMORY  PROCESSES     347 

mind  in  the  least  have  left  memories  of  their  action.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  all  impressions  of  slight  intensity,  even  though 
they  attain  the  dignity  of  sensations,  perceptions,  or  even  mere 
complex  states,  are  necessarily  recalled.  They  may  be  recalled 
in  peculiar  or  abnormal  conditions,  or  in  hypnotic  states,  but 
even  if  too  slight  for  recall  under  such  circumstances,  they  color 
all  our  subsequent  life  and  have  their  influence  upon  the  general 
course  of  conscious  memories.  There  are,  in  fact,  exceedingly 
few  things  that  are  recalled  exactly,  or  even  need  to  be.  But 
we  may  be  certain  that  every  influence  to  which  we  are  subject 
leaves  its  "trace"  upon  our  lives,  and,  of  still  more  far-reaching 
importance,  upon  all  posterity.  As  James  remarks,  "We  are 
spinning  our  own  fates,  good  or  evil,  and  never  to  be  undone. 
Every  smallest  stroke  of  virtue  or  of  vice  leaves  its  never  so  little 
scar.  The  drunken  Rip  Van  Winkle,  in  Jefferson's  play, 
excuses  himself  for  every  fresh  dereliction  by  saying,  'I  won't 
count  this  time!'  Well!  he  may  not  count  it  and  a  kind  Heaven 
may  not  count  it;  but  it  is  being  counted  none  the  less.  Down 
among  his  nerve-cells  and  fibres  the  molecules  are  counting  it, 
registering  and  storing  it  up  to  be  used  against  him  when  the 
next  temptation  comes.  Nothing  we  ever  do  is,  in  strict  scien- 
tific literalness,  wiped  out.  Of  course,  this  has  its  good  side  as 
well  as  its  bad  one.  As  we  become  permanent  drunkards  by  so 
many  separate  drinks,  so  we  become  saints  in  the  moral,  and 
authorities  and  experts  in  the  practical  and  scientific  spheres, 
by  so  many  separate  acts  and  hours  of  work."  l  Colgrove2  writes 
on  this  point:  "Perhaps  that  was  not  wholly  a  dream  of  De 
Quincey,  Swedenborg,  and  Coleridge  that  the  angels  would 
come  in  the  judgment  day  and  take  a  complete  record  of  our 
lives  from  the  traces  left  in  our  bodies  and  nervous  systems,  and 
that  by  these  we  should  be  judged.  If  these  are  the  books 
which  are  to  be  opened,  a  record  trustworthy  enough  to  deter- 
mine destiny  will  be  found.  Each  record  in  itself  makes  des- 
tiny." Prof.  Ewald  Hering  asserts  in  that  pioneer  work  on  the 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I,  p.  127. 

2  Memory,  pp.  167-169. 


348  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

newer  theory  of  organic  memory1  that,  "The  conscious  memory 
of  man  dies  with  his  death;  but  the  unconscious  memory  of 
nature  is  faithful  and  indestructible.  Whoever  has  succeeded 
in  impressing  the  vestiges  of  his  work  upon  it,  will  be  re- 
membered forever." 

1  Memory  as  a  General  Function  of  Organized  Matter,  p.  27. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE    NATURE    AND     EDUCATIONAL     SIGNIFICANCE 
OF  ASSOCIATION 

Illustrations  of  Mental  Associations. — I  walk  by  a  certain 
building  and  suddenly  find  myself  thinking  about  a  friend  whom 
I  have  not  seen  for  years.  Why  should  these  thoughts  dart 
into  my  mind  so  unceremoniously  and  unbidden?  Even  as  I 
wrote  the  above  sentence  I  suddenly  found  my  mind  wandering 
far  away  to  a  certain  scene  near  my  boyhood  home  which  I 
have  not  seen  for  many  years.  Why  should  writing  educational 
books  be  mixed  up  with  my  thoughts  of  boyhood  episodes? 
Again,  I  recline  in  my  easy-chair  before  the  hearth  and  gaze  into 
the  fire  with  no  particular  thoughts  in  mind,  and  with  only  a 
comfortable  unconcern.  I  indulge  in  day-dreams,  and  sud- 
denly, when  aroused  to  full  consciousness,  I  find  that  I  have 
wandered  to  far  distant  places  and  to  scenes  and  events  long 
past.  Why  should  the  remote  be  so  connected  with  the  present? 
When  I  listen  to  a  speaker,  or  when  I  read  a  book,  I  try  to  have 
my  thoughts  follow  the  line  suggested  by  the  speaker  or  the 
writer.  When  I  follow  out  a  particular  line  of  thought  of  my 
own  I  also  take  a  somewhat  definite  course  marked  out  by  the 
nature  of  the  thinking  or  by  my  own  former  course  of  thinking, 
but  when  I  allow  my  thoughts  to  wander  I  find  them  taking 
strange  and  devious  paths. 

In  all  these  and  similar  cases,  the  particular  ideas  are  called 
into  consciousness  because  of  some  chain  of  relations  which  we 
have  previously  forged  in  our  minds,  and  because  of  some 
factor  in  our  present  experience  which  is  also  common  to  the 
chain  of  relations  previously  established.  To  illustrate,  on 
coming  to  the  university,  I  now  recall  that  the  last  time  I  saw 
my  friend  we  were  standing  in  the  doorway  of  a  particular 

349 


350  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

building.  The  sight  of  the  building  was  a  stimulus  which 
aroused  a  series  of  mental  processes  one  of  which  was  the  idea 
of  my  friend.  I  had  good  cause  to  think  of  my  friend  in  rela- 
tion to  that  building  as  we  parted.  Those  two  experiences, 
the  idea  of  the  building  and  of  my  friend,  had  been  registered 
together  in  my  consciousness  at  the  time.  The  recurrence  of 
any  stimulus  once  experienced  tends  to  revive  memories  of  all 
events  connected  with  it.  The  reason  will  appear  plainer  after 
considering  the  physiological  basis  of  association.  Again,  as  I 
wrote  the  word  "friend"  my  mind  at  once  and  naturally  re- 
verted toward  some  of  my  friends,  and,  for  some  reason,  the  par- 
ticular one  thought  of  was  a  relative;  probably  because  in  form- 
ing friendships  one  most  usually  comes  in  contact  with  relatives 
first,  and  also  much  more  frequently.  Again,  as  most  of  my 
relatives  now  reside  near  my  boyhood  home,  my  thoughts  at 
once  turned  in  that  direction.  But  while  contemplating  that 
closely  related  set  of  experiences,  I  notice  that  my  mind  flits  from 
scene  to  scene,  event  to  event,  until  I  am  far  away  from  the 
original  series.  However,  as  I  analyze  the  steps  carefully  I  find 
that  no  new  idea  has  arisen  in  consciousness  which  has  not  been 
previously  related  in  my  mind  to  that  which  suggested  it.  This, 
we  may  be  sure,  is  true  even  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  trace 
the  various  connections.  This  statement  is  warranted  by  ex- 
perimental evidence,  and  by  the  physiological  basis  of  recall  in 
memory. 

If  one  hears  a  word,  no  ideas  ever  flash  into  mind  that  have 
never  been  associated  with  the  word.  The  following  experi- 
ment never  fails  to  prove  interesting  and  instructive  to  classes. 
Pronounce  the  following  or  other  words  and  ask  the  class  to 
write  down,  after  each  word  is  pronounced,  the  first  word  that 
comes  to  mind:  George,  president,  superintendent,  Manila, 
one,  watch,  Ivory  Soap,  Milwaukee.  It  is  possible  to  predict 
what  most  of  the  words  written  will  be.  I  have  repeated  the 
experiment  many  times,  and  have  seldom  been  unable  to 
trace  the  direct  connection  between  the  suggesting  word  and 
the  recalled  idea.  Inasmuch  as  so  many  ideas  are  continually 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       351 

/ 

coursing  through  our  subconsciousness,  it  is  not  difficult  to  un- 
derstand why  curious  and  apparently  unrelated  ideas  frequently 
arise. 

Illustrations  of  Physiological  Associations. — The  chains  of 
associations  thus  far  considered  are  all  drawn  from  the  realm 
of  mental  experiences;  but  associations  are  not  limited  to 
psychical  processes.  Mechanical  muscular  activities  are  learned 
by  all  animals.  When  the  processes  become  deep-seated  they 
are  termed  habits.  In  physical  processes  such  as  swallowing, 
winking,  and  walking,  there  is  a  definite  relation  between 
stimulus  and  reaction.  Food  entering  the  oesophagus  is  tne 
stimulus  for  the  contraction  of  certain  muscles;  the  contraction 
of  these  muscles  is  the  signal  or  stimulus  to  still  other  contrac- 
tions or  relaxations.  Stimulus  becomes  associated  with  reaction; 
reaction  with  other  reactions,  and  so  on.  Thus  various  ele- 
ments become  associated  in  the  mere  physical  and  neurological 
processes.  In  many  physiological  processes  there  is  no  men- 
tal element,  e.  g.,  in  digestion,  propulsion  of  the  food  in  the 
alimentary  canal,  and  in  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  The 
physiology  of  habit  is  explainable  on  exactly  the  same  basis 
as  the  above  mechanical  muscular  activities.  Through  activity 
there  is  produced  a  discharge  of  nervous  energy  in  a  par- 
ticular direction.  This  is  repeated  so  often  that  the  slightest 
stimulus  of  a  certain  sort  effects  a  discharge  of  nervous  energy 
in  the  given  direction.  Here  we  have  an  association  between 
stimulus  and  nervous  activity,  between  these  and  muscular  ac- 
tivity, and  also  between  each  stage  of  muscular  activity  and 
the  succeeding  one.  Even  in  plant  life  there  is  the  same  sort  of 
association  between  stimulus  and  reactions,  and  between  each 
stage  in  physical  reaction  and  the  next.  These  organic  associa- 
tions thus  lie  at  the  basis  of  memories.  This  fundamental  mean- 
ing of  association  is  thus  emphasized  because  it  will  be  dis- 
cerned that  it  is  of  the  highest  pedagogical  value  in  considering 
economical  learning  and  memory. 

All  our  every-day  habits  depend  upon  motor  reactions  of  a 
mechanical  sort.  Standing,  walking,  arranging  one's  cbthes, 


352  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

opening  and  closing  doors,  avoiding  obstacles,  following  habitual 
paths,  holding  one's  book  open  to  read,  dipping  one's  pen  in 
the  right  bottle,  using  knives  and  forks  properly,  etc.,  could 
not  be  carried  on  were  these  organic  associations  not  properly 
established.  Skill  in  games  is  reached  only  after  effort  in  es- 
tablishing muscular  co-ordinations  (associations).  Once  estab- 
lished, it  is  necessary  only  to  think  of  the  end  in  view  to  awaken 
the  entire  sequence  of  processes  necessary  to  accomplish  the  re- 
sult. Each  step  is  the  necessary  stimulus  to  call  the  next  step 
into  activity.  The  associations  formed  in  riding  a  bicycle  or 
learning  to  dance  are  very  largely  physiological.  Little  men- 
tality needs  to  be  put  into  either  act.  What  there  is  belongs  to 
the  ideo-motor  type.  An  obstruction  is  encountered  with  the 
bicycle.  The  muscles  hit  upon  the  successful  method  of  ac- 
quiring control,  and  this  co-ordination  is  remembered,  not  as  a 
conscious  process,  because  few  could  describe  it,  but  it  is  re- 
tained as  organic  memory. 

Such  school  activities  as  writing,  drawing,  oral  reading,  and 
spelling,  acquire  perfection  only  after  mechanical,  organic  as- 
sociations have  been  definitely  fixed.  The  learning  of  one's 
mother  tongue  depends  upon  associations  (a)  between  the  idea 
and  the  word,  (6)  between  the  sound  of  the  word  and  the  move- 
ment of  the  vocal  organs  in  producing  the  sound,  (c)  between  the 
idea  and  the  written  or  printed  symbol,  (d)  between  the  sound  of 
the  word  and  the  written  or  printed  symbol  representing  it,  (e) 
between  each  of  these  and  the  various  qualities  making  up  the 
idea.  Halleck  has  given  an  excellent  discussion  of  the  com- 
plexity of  association  in  understanding  a  simple  object.  In  the 
same  discussion  he  also  shows  clearly  the  necessity  for  a  physical 
basis  of  association.1 

The  Physical  Basis  of  Association. — Association  cannot  be 
clearly  understood  until  it  is  studied  from  the  physical  and  the 
physiological  sides.  From  what  was  said  concerning  the  physical 
basis  of  memory  it  will  be  recalled  that  when  a  given  stimulus 
acts  upon  any  part  of  the  nervous  system  it  produces  a  physio- 

1  Psychology  and  Psychic  Culture,  p.  112. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       353 

logical  change.  This  modification  tends  to  be  made  permanent 
by  the  nutritive  processes.  Now,  all  perceptive  processes  are 
very  complex  and  are  the  result  of  a  fusion  of  numerous  sensa- 
tions. To  take  a  concrete  example,  let  us  consider  the  processes 
involved  in  forming  the  perception  of  an  orange — the  classic 
psychological  fruit.  The  visual  sensation  representing  the  color 
becomes  associated  with  the  visual  sensation  representing  the 
shape,  each  or  both  of  these  with  the  taste,  the  odor,  the  touch, 
and  the  sound  when  the  orange  is  dropped  or  tapped  or  scratched. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  sensation  of  color  which  is  connected  with 
that  of  taste,  sometimes  that  of  taste  with  color;  again  the  odor 
is  perceived,  and  that  associated  with  its  sight  or  its  taste. 
These  and  manifold  other  experiences  are  fused  in  developing 
the  complete  idea  of  the  orange.  Thus  through  experience  each 
sensation  has  stimulated  a  flow  of  nervous  energy  from  the  seat 
of  one  class  of  sensations  to  that  of  another.  This  tends  to  fix 
the  path  in  that  direction  and  between  these  two  centres.  But 
in  the  process  of  becoming  acquainted  with  (perceiving)  any 
given  object,  these  associations  are  made  in  many  directions — 
and,  if  accurate,  the  more  diverse  the  better  the  perception.  Be- 
sides these  we  have  the  muscular  sensation  in  saying  the  word 
orange,  the  auditory  sensation  in  hearing  it,  the  temperature 
sensation  from  touching  it,  the  muscular  sensation  from  lifting  it, 
and  possibly  we  may  have  written  the  word  and  thus  have  re- 
ceived added  visual  and  muscular  sensations.  Subsequently  when 
any  particular  stimulus  is  received  from  the  orange,  e.  g.,  that  of 
color,  all  the  other  centres  involved  are  communicated  with  and 
the  entire  complex  flashes  into  mind.  The  orange  is  not  much 
of  an  orange  until  we  have  associated  every  sensation  derived 
from  it  with  every  other  one  and  have  all  combined.  Helen 
Keller's  percept  of  an  orange  lacks  certain  very  important 
qualities.  Her  knowledge  of  the  sky,  and  of  many  flowers, 
and  of  painting,  is  sadly  incomplete.  The  association  fibres 
of  the  brain  are  no  myths.  Because  of  their  number  and  com- 
plexity in  man  he  is  able  to  form  ideas  that  are  exceedingly  com- 
plex compared  with  those  of  the  lower  animals. 


354  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

We  think  of  perceptions  as  being  simple  mental  phenomena, 
but  in  reality  they  are  very  complex.  I  see  before  me  an  orange. 
What  separate  ideas  have  I  of  the  qualities  of  the  orange  which 
enable  me  to  recognize  it  ?  In  the  first  place  I  see  only  a  patch 
of  yellow  color.  What  other  qualities  can  I  assert  of  the  orange  ? 
I  know  that  it  has  a  rough,  grater-like  skin,  although  I  do  not 
touch  it.  I  can  tell  that  the  inside  is  made  up  of  a  pulpy  mass, 
probably  containing  seeds,  and  full  of  juice,  which  will  spurt  out 
if  pressed.  I  know  the  smell  and  the  taste,  also,  so  that  I  can 
revive  them,  or,  at  any  rate,  could  tell  whether  you  gave  me  an 
orange  or  an  onion  or  a  red-pepper.  I  can  also  image  the 
weight  of  the  orange.  All  these  ideas  always  occurring  together 
in  my  mind  have  become  associated  to  make  up  my  idea  of  orange. 
You  speak  the  word  orange,  and  what  comes  into  my  mind  ? 
Why,  some  quality  of  the  orange.  Perhaps  its  color.  It  may 
be  its  odor,  its  shape,  its  feel,  its  weight.  I  get  the  odor,  and  the 
color,  taste,  and  the  other  qualities  come  to  mind.  I  see  it  and 
its  name,  and  some  of  the  other  qualities  are  recalled.  Why  is 
this  ?  It  is  because  all  these  ideas  have  become  welded  together 
so  that  when  one  is  disturbed  or  stimulated  all  the  rest  in  the  com- 
plex tend  to  be  awakened  into  activity.  Titchener  expresses 
this  from  the  psychical  point  of  view  as  follows:  "All  the  con- 
nections set  up  between  sensations,  by  their  welding  together  into 
perceptions  and  ideas,  tend  to  persist.  A  sensation  which  has 
once  formed  connections  with  other  sensations  cannot  shake 
them  off  and  be  its  own  bare  self  again, — the  bare  sensation  that 
it  was  when  it  entered  for  the  first  time  into  a  perception, — but 
carries  its  connections  with  it;  so  that  whenever  it  has  a  place  in 
consciousness,  the  connected  sensations  tend  to  be  dragged  in 
also.  This  law  is  the  law  of  the  association  of  ideas"  l 

Definitions  of  Association. — We  are  now  ready  to  give  a  some- 
what more  formal  definition  of  association.  Whenever  two  or 
more  experiences  are  registered  together,  the  recurrence  of  one  of 
them  tends  to  revive  the  others  with  which  it  has  been  registered. 

Halleck  has  defined  the  process  as  follows:  "Ideas  or  objects 

1  A  Primer  of  Psychology,  p.  130. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       355 

that  have  been  before  consciousness  at  the  same  time,  and  hence 
apperceived  in  the  same  mental  state,  tend  afterward  to  suggest 
each  other."  l  This  definition  is  an  excellent  statement  concern- 
ing conscious  mental  states,  but  it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  it  does 
not  include  subconscious  mental  states,  and,  still  less,  muscular 
and  other  organic  associations.  James  has  stated  the  case  well 
in  terms  of  cerebral  physiology.  He  says:2  "When  two  ele- 
mentary brain  processes  have  been  active  together  or  in  immediate 
succession,  one  of  them,  on  recurring,  tends  to  propagate  its  ex- 
citement into  the  other.'1  This  would  express  the  exact  condi- 
tions if  the  words  "neural"  or  "organic"  were  substituted 
for  "brain."  That  is  what  James  implies,  and  definitely  says 
in  the  expression:  "There  is  no  other  elementary  causal  law  of 
association  than  the  law  of  neural  habit."  3  And  again  when 
he  says,  "This  ultimate  physiological  law  of  habit  among  the 
neural  elements  is  what  runs  the  train."  4 

Association  and  Suggestion. — What  has  been  discussed  by 
many  writers  as  association  is  not  really  association  at  all,  but 
suggestion.  The  discussions  are  somewhat  as  follows:  "As- 
sociation is  that  process  in  reproduction  by  which  past  ideas  are 
brought  back  through  connection  with  something  present  in  the 
mind."  "Association  of  ideas  is  the  means  by  which  a  succes- 
sive train  of  ideas  arises."  "Thinking  about  anything  tends  to 
make  one  think  of  something  connected  with  it.  This  mental 
fact  is  called  the  association  of  ideas." 

Association  is,  however,  instead  of  a  process  of  recall,  the 
process  of  registering  the  experiences  together,  of  establishing 
relations  among  them.  It  is  an  explanation  of  the  cause  of  recall. 
Because  of  the  associations  which  were  made  at  the  time  of 
registration,  some  object  now  in  consciousness  may  serve  as  a 
stimulus  to  recall  some  idea  or  train  of  ideas.  The  fact  serving 
as  a  recall-stimulus  is  a  suggestion.  But  the  nature  of  the  recall 
and  the  order  of  the  recall  were  determined  by  previous  associa- 

1  Psychology  and  Psychic  Culture,  p.  114. 

2  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  I,  p.  566. 

3  Loc.  cit.  *0p.  cit.,  p.  581. 


356  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

tions.  Association  is  a  registration  process  rather  than  a  recall 
process. 

The  Direction  of  the  Association. — Associations  are  the  basis 
of  habits,  and  as  in  habits,  the  activities  in  a  chain  of  associations 
become  linked  together  in  such  a  way  that  the  order  becomes  very 
definite.  Everybody  knows  how  quickly  the  alphabet  can  be 
repeated  forward,  and  also  that  it  takes  longer  to  repeat  it  back- 
ward— how  much  longer  we  do  not  usually  realize.  Repeated 
experiments  with  college  classes  have  shown  me  that  it  takes 
about  three  seconds  to  say  it  forward,  and  thirty  seconds  to  say  it 
backward.  Great  difficulty,  and  even  painful  tension,  are  ex- 
perienced by  most  persons  who  try  to  say  it  backward.  Also, 
instead  of  proceeding  smoothly  and  continuously  from  Z  to  A, 
they  are  obliged  to  go  a  little  way,  say  to  R,  and  repeat  it  for- 
ward, at  the  same  time  trying  to  build  up  an  association  in  the 
opposite  direction,  and  then  repeat  it  backward.  One  who  had 
committed  a  poem  to  memory  would  not  attempt  reversing  the 
order  of  words.  Only  a  few  words  can  be  spelled  backward  by 
most  of  us.  The  far-reaching  importance  of  this  principle  is, 
however,  too  often  unappreciated  and  violated.  The  teacher 
gives  the  child  the  combination  7  X  8  =  56,  and  is  amazed 
when  the  child  cannot  tell  that  8  X  7  =  56.  The  brightest 
children  may  happen  to  reverse  the  combination,  and  thus  hit 
upon  the  right  answer,  while  the  rest  fail  and  are  called  stupid. 
It  is  a  case  of  pedagogical  blundering  on  the  part  of  the  teacher 
rather  than  stupidity  on  the  part  of  the  children.  7  X  8  is  not 
the  same  as  8  X  7,  any  more  than  c-a-t  is  the  same  as  t-a-c. 
8  +  7  is  not  the  same  process  as  7  +8;  36  -*-  9  is  not  the  same 
as  36  -r-  4;  2  of  4  is  not  the  same  as  4  -H  2,  or  2/4  of  4.  To  make 
the  child  see  the  equivalences,  and  learn  the  different  combina- 
tions, is  a  part  of  the  teaching  process.  They  are  not  usually 
seen  by  the  child  until  pointed  out. 

In  teaching  foreign  languages  this  principle  is  frequently 
overlooked.  The  usual  procedure  in  the  translation  method 
is  to  have  the  pupil  look  at  the  foreign  word  and  then  say  the 
English  equivalent.  For  example,  the  pupil  looks  at  the  word 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       357 

Knabe  and  says  boy,  Mddchen  and  says  girl,  livre  and  says  book, 
chien  and  says  dog,  etc.  Is  there  any  wonder  that  the  pupil 
does  not  learn  to  speak  the  language  readily?  The  chain  of 
association  has  been  from  foreign  printed  symbol  to  native 
spoken  word,  instead  of  from  object  or  idea  to  foreign  spoken 
word.  In  many  classes  the  pupils  seldom  read  the  German, 
always  translating.  Thus  the  ear  never  becomes  accustomed 
to  the  sound  of  the  foreign  language.  Still  less  are  there  associa- 
tions built  up  between  idea,  spoken  foreign  word,  and  printed 
foreign  word.  While  in  Germany,  as  a  student,  I  noticed  that 
many  American  students  always  tried  to  take  notes  in  English 
on  the  lectures,  given  in  German,  of  course.  As  a  result,  those 
students  never  learned  to  understand  the  lectures  well.  It  is 
almost  unnecessary  to  add  that  they  never  learned  to  speak 
German.  They  constantly  heard  one  language  and  thought 
another.  As  a  result,  both  processes  were  hindered.  The 
students  who  went  into  the  lectures  and  began  taking  down 
in  German  as  much  as  possible,  if  only  a  single  word  or  an 
isolated  sentence,  soon  became  accustomed  to  grasp  the  thought 
and  to  record  it  in  the  same  language.  Their  progress  was  de- 
cidedly faster  than  that  of  those  who  resorted  to  translation 
methods. 

I  have  frequently  tried  the  following  experiment  with  classes: 
(i)  A  list  of  German  words  is  given  to  be  translated  at  sight  into 
English.  The  time  is  taken  and  the  number  of  mistakes  is 
recorded.  (2)  A  list  of  English  words,  equally  long  and  of  the 
same  difficulty,  is  given  to  be  translated  at  sight  into  German. 
The  time  necessary  to  translate  the  list  from  German  into  Eng- 
lish is  always  much  less  than  when  the  translation  is  from 
English  into  German.  The  latter  often  takes  twice  as  long, 
and  more  mistakes  occur.  The  result  is  a  perfectly  natural  one. 
Ease  and  rapidity  of  functioning  is  a  consequence  of  frequent 
associations.  The  way  in  which  experiences  are  registered  de- 
termines largely  the  manner  of  their  recall.  The  existence  of 
this  physiological  and  psychological  law  is  the  justification  for 
treating  association  as  a  part  of  memory.  From  the  practical 


358  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

stand-point  of  the  teacher  we  are  deeply  desirous  of  having  ex- 
periences assimilated  in  such  a  way  that  they  may  be  service- 
able at  subsequent  times.  The  accuracy  and  facility  with 
which  they  recur  is  dependent  upon  the  manner  in  which  they 
were  recorded. 

Mechanical  or  serial  associations  are  formed  in  learning  such 
combinations  as  the  alphabet,  rhymes,  jingles,  or  any  combina- 
tion of  words  in  a,  serial  order.  Any  such  process  may  be  repre- 
sented by  a-b-c-d-e  in  which  a  serves  to  call  up  b,  b  calls  up  c, 
c  calls  up  d,  etc.  (See  Fig.  30.)  No  given  element  can  be 
called  up  easily  save  by  the  previous  element  as  a  stimulus. 
Ask  a  class  suddenly  what  letter  precedes  m,  and  they  are  either 
very  slow  in  answering,  or  give  a  wrong  answer.  Complex 
associations  are  formed  when  the  order  is  not  always  the  same, 

FIG.  30. — Diagrammatic   representation   of   mechanical   or   serial  association. 

and  when  many  elements  become  associated  with  each  element. 
Not  only  are  the  elements  as  a-b-c,  connected  serially,  but  each 
element  is  connected  with  every  other  element.  Each  one  of  the 
given  elements  then  serves  es  a  stimulus  suggesting  the  recall  of 
any  and  all  of  the  others.  The  chances  of  recall  are  thus  very 
greatly  multiplied. 

The  accompanying  diagram  (Fig.  31)  may  help  to  under- 
stand the  effect  of  multiple  associations.  The  various  letters 
on  the  circumference  of  the  circle  may  represent  the  various  items 
of  experience  which  become  linked  with  each  other  in  mani- 
fold relations.  Gradually  they  group  themselves  around  some 
central  theme,  represented  by  o.  The  circumference  may  rep- 
resent the  unification  and  binding  of  all  into  a  unified,  complex 
thought-whole. 

Laws  of  Association. — Most  psychologists  state  several  laws 
of  association  which  are  designed  to  show  why  certain  ideas  have 
clustered  about  them  a  series  of  certain  other  ideas.  The 
explanations  are  usually  based  upon  the  character  of  external 
objects  or  the  order  in  which  they  have  been  experienced  by  us. 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  ASSOCIATION      359 

Some  of  these  laws  are  called  those  of  contiguity  (in  space  or  in 
time),  similarity,  contrast,  cause  and  effect,  etc.  There  is,  how- 
ever, only  one  fundamental  law  of  association,  namely  that  of 
coexistence  in  experience.  Experiences  which  have  been 
registered  together  become  associated  and  tend  afterward  to 
persist  in  the  original  relations.  Chance  coexistence  in  space 
or  time,  similarities,  contrasts,  or  causal  relations  between  phe- 
nomena do  aid  in  making  associations,  but  until  the  registra- 
tions are  made  there  are  no  associations.  Whenever  any  of 


FIG.  31.- 


-Diagram  representing  a  complex  of  associations 
and  their  unification. 


these  factors  produce  or  promote  recall  it  can  be  assumed  that 
some  elements  have  previously  been  registered  together. 

Purposive  Associations.— In  order  to  have  things  recalled  it 
will  not  do  to  trust  to  chance  associations  that  are  expected  to  be 
formed  because  things  may  be  near  together  in  space  or  time. 
',Every-day  illustrations  may  be  given  to  show  that  mere  chance 
contiguity  in  space  or  in  time  is  not  sufficient  to  produce  an 
association  in  the  mind.  A  class  of  forty  were  asked  to  tell  the 
number  of  the  class-room  in  which  they  had  assembled  three 
times  every  week  for  six  months.  Not  one  was  able  to  answer 
correctly.  They  were  asked  to  draw  a  dog's  foot  and  a  hen's 
track  as  they  appeared  in  the  snow  or  in  the  mud.  The  drawings 
were  far  from  accurate,  some  drawing  three  toes  and  some  five 


360  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

toes  for  the  hen's  track.  Those  were  objects  of  frequent  casual 
observation,  but  because  no  attention  had  been  paid  to  them, 
no  definite  associations  had  been  formed.  That  the  associations 
had  not  been  formed  better  was  no  discredit,  but  it  shows  us 
that  in  all  teaching  associations  must  not  be  left  to  chance.  By 
questions,  by  analysis,  by  careful  explanations,  and  by  requir- 
ing concentrated  thinking,  pupils  must  be  led  to  form  definite 
associations  and  not  be  passive  recipients  of  isolated  facts. 
Careful  questioning  produces  new  ideas,  new  combinations  of 
thought,  i.  e.y  new  associations,  thus  increasing  the  number  of 
suggestions  and  the  probability  of  recall. 

When  a  given  idea  has  been  associated  with  several  others,  it  is 
of  interest  and  importance  to  know  which  will  be  recalled  when 
it  comes  before  the  mind.  It  is  of  still  more  immediate  interest 
to  know  how  to  weld  associations  so  that  the  experiences  can 
best  be  retained  and  recalled  when  needed.  Although  the 
stream  of  thought  is  to  a  large  extent  determined  by  chance 
associations,  it  is  also  true  that  the  most  desirable  associations 
are  not  made  without  conscious  effort.  The  child,  for  example, 
gains  in  a  desultory  manner  from  his  environment,  many  ideas 
about  nature,  art,  social  laws,  and  economic  relations.  The 
knowledge  thus  obtained  is  sometimes  so  much  overestimated 
that  it  is  not  deemed  necessary  to  study  these  facts  and  phe- 
nomena in  a  systematic  way.  While  environment  is  exceed- 
ingly potent  in  shaping  one's  ideas,  we  must  not  forget  that 
there  are  many  with  eyes  who  see  not,  with  ears  who  hear  not. 
The  country  boy  with  a  vast  wealth  of  natural  phenomena  all 
about  him  is  too  often  completely  deaf  and  blind  to  their  rich- 
ness. It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  find  bright  country  boys  of 
sixteen  who  do  not  know  as  many  birds  and  other  animals,  trees, 
flowers,  and  varieties  of  rocks  and  soils,  as  the  city  high-school 
boy  who  had  early  in  the  grades  been  taught  to  observe  these 
things.  The  country  boy  has  wonderful  possibilities,  but  is 
often  without  wise  guidance.  In  order  to  produce  associations, 
the  more  purposeful  the  effort,  other  things  being  equal,  the 
better  the  associations  will  be  made. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       361 

Vividness. — Events  which  have  come  to  us  in  so  striking  a 
manner  as  to  transfix  the  attention  are  indelibly  impressed  upon 
the  mind.  An  accident,  the  first  sight  of  the  great  ocean,  the 
first  trip  to  a  metropolis,  a  visit  to  Mammoth  Cave,  a  descent 
into  a  coal  mine,  a  balloon  ascension,  a  fright  from  an  en- 
counter with  wild  beasts,  or  a  railroad  accident  can  never  be 
forgotten  by  the  one  who  has  had  the  particular  experience. 
Similarly  it  is  not  uncommon  to  be  put  into  possession  of  cer- 
tain facts  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  never  be  effaced.  The 
demonstrations  in  physics  performed  by  a  certain  professor 
come  back  to  me  now  in  great  detail,  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  a 
score  of  years  since  witnessing  them.  The  first  wonders  of 
experimental  psychology  came  to  me  so  impressively  that  I  could 
now  tell  every  detail  of  the  experiments  performed  more  than  a 
dozen  years  ago.  Is  it  not  a  truer  function  of  teaching  to  open 
up  the  wonders  of  the  universe,  both  of  nature  and  of  art,  with 
the  utmost  vividness,  than  to  drill  mechanically  a  traditional  set 
of  facts  into  pupils'  minds  ? 

Ideas  should  be  made  as  vivid  as  possible  in  order  to  estab- 
lish associations  thoroughly.  The  advertiser  seeks  to  arrest  the 
attention  and  compel  the  mind  to  contemplate  the  thing  ad- 
vertised. In  order  to  do  this,  striking  pictures,  brilliant  colors, 
bizarre  figures  and  situations,  are  employed.  Besides  being 
designed  to  compel  attention,  a  successful  advertisement  must 
set  forth  the  most  tempting  features  of  the  advertised  wares. 
Enough  must  be  given  to  make  the  observer  curious  to  know 
more.  The  good  teacher  is  a  good  advertiser.  He  presents 
ideas  in  striking  ways  and  at  opportune  times  so  as  to  stimulate 
curiosity. 

Attention  and  Association. — Though  the  nervous  system  of 
the  child  is  plastic  and  his  senses  keen,  yet  the  majority  of  his 
perceptions  leave  little  definite  trace.  This  is  because  he  can- 
not concentrate  all  his  forces  upon  the  facts  under  considera- 
tion, and  because  his  ideas  do  not  sprout  out  and  become  re- 
lated to  all  other  germane  ideas.  Attention  not  only  means  the 
ability  to  focus  the  mind  on  a  single  point,  excluding  extraneous 


362  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

ideas,  but  also  the  ability  to  secure  a  grasp  on  everything  that  can 
contribute  to  the  complete  understanding  of  the  given  idea.  It 
is  like  the  abilities  of  a  strong  executive.  He  must  not  only  be 
able  to  work  hard  and  effectively  himself,  but  he  must  be  able 
to  marshal  great  forces  to  exert  their  utmost  aid  in  the  same 
direction.  In  a  great  act  of  attention  the  mind  is  not  merely 
fixed  in  one  direction,  oblivious  to  all  else,  but  it  is  searching  this 
way  and  that  to  discover  and  establish  all  possible  integral  re- 
lations. The  child's  inability  to  attend  is  explained  largely 
through  his  lack  of  apperceptive  material.  Therefore  when  we 
speak  of  attention  as  a  factor  in  association  we  mean  that 
associations  are  deepened  thereby,  and  new  ones  formed,  thus 
increasing  the  possibility  of  recall.  The  lowest  sort  of  atten- 
tion is  employed  in  strengthening  mechanical  associations,  the 
higher  in  establishing  thoughtful  ones.  The  former  is  neces- 
sary in  teaching  the  child  to  recognize  word  forms,  to  spell,  or  to 
fix  the  addition  table  and  the  multiplication  table.  As  long  as 
he  is  swaying  about,  looking  out  of  the  window,  or  counting  his 
marbles,  he  cannot  fix  the  word  forms.  He  must  be  brought  to 
see  with  sufficient  attention  to  effect  a  change  in  his  cerebral 
ganglia.  On  the  other  hand,  in  order  to  register  ineffaceably 
algebraic  principles  and  scientific  truths,  the  attention  must 
command  all  the  individual  ideas  in  such  a  way  that  they  are 
apprehended  and  comprehended,  until  every  appropriate  re- 
lation is  established.  To  accomplish  this,  each  new  fact  must 
be  scrutinized  and  made  to  fit  into  the  system  necessitated  by 
all  the  kindred  facts.  This  relating  activity  is  coextensive  with 
the  higher  form  of  attention,  and  ensures  the  most  valuable 
associations. 

When  there  is  an  attempt  to  make  artificial  associations  in  a 
mechanical  way,  as  in  learning  foreign  languages,  the  names  and 
locations  of  various  geographical  features,  or  a  series  of  his- 
torical data,  there  is  often  no  interest  in  the  process,  and  the  re- 
sults either  become  confused  or  soon  disappear.  Experiences 
do  not  become  deep  and  permanent  without  undivided  atten- 
tion. Genuine  attention  is  only  possible  when  there  is  a  full 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  ASSOCIATION      363 

headway  of  interest.  Frequently  insufficient  time  is  given  to 
make  associations  permanent.  A  flash-light  may  disclose  an 
interesting  scene,  but  before  the  mind  has  had  time  to  dwell 
upon  its  contents  it  is  passed  by  for  another  one.  The  suc- 
cession of  views  becomes  confused.  Similarly  with  the  multi- 
plicity of  things  which  often  engage  the  school-child's  atten- 
tion. He  flits  from  study  to  study,  and  from  topic  to  topic,  so 
rapidly  that  no  idea  has  a  chance  to  be  recalled  or  contemplated. 
When  we  consider  the  number  of  topics  that  a  child  is  frequently 
expected  to  learn  in  history  or  geography  in  a  year,  the  surprise 
is  not  that  he  forgets  as  many,  but  rather  that  he  retains  as  many 
as  he  does. 

Repetition  of  what  has  been  learned  is  an  important  factor, 
especially  in  mechanical  memory.  The  association  paths  are  to 
be  deepened,  and  the  oftener  the  ideas  are  recalled  in  the  same 
order  the  better  the  retention.  Here  again  the  psychology  of 
advertising  has  abundant  suggestiveness.  No  one  can  help 
knowing  the  particular  merits  of  Ivory  Soap,  Pears'  Soap, 
Rubifoam,  Sozodont,  Peruna,  Walter  Baker's  Cocoa,  Swift's 
Premium  Hams,  Quaker  Oats,  or  Heinz's  Pickles.  They  have 
been  inescapable.  We  encounter  their  compelling  pictures  and 
persuasive  phrases  in  every  newspaper  and  magazine.  We 
cannot  turn  a  street  corner,  or  glance  out  of  a  car  window,  or 
even  withdraw  our  glance  to  car  interiors,  without  encountering 
some  of  these  "ads."  In  season  and  out  of  season,  whether 
we  will  or  no  we  are  bound  to  meet  them.  The  teacher  may 
well  take  a  hint.  Some  of  the  arts  most  worth  striving  for  can 
be  taught  by  the  same  process.  Take  language,  for  example. 
How  else  will  the  child  ever  develop  correct  speech  except  by 
hearing  it,  seeing  it,  and  feeling  its  power  during  every  minute 
of  the  school  day,  and  properly  in  the  home?  The  child  who 
hears  correct  speech  only  in  the  language  class  will  never  acquire 
it  thoroughly.  Morals  and  manners  must  be  taught  in  the 
same  fashion  as  correct  language.  If  good  examples  are  adver- 
tised on  Sunday  only,  the  intervening  week-days  will  obliterate 
all  traces. 


364  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

The  Observance  of  Natural  Relations  is  always  an  excellent 
means  of  fixing  associations.  The  coexistence  in  time  or  space 
of  objects  or  events  that  regularly  occur  in  such  relations,  when 
observed,  is  an  aid  in  fixing  the  association.  This  is  true  be- 
cause when  once  the  relations  are  observed  the  coexistent  factors 
are  frequently  brought  before  consciousness.  Such  phenomena 
as  thunder  and  lightning,  warm  weather  and  growing  vegeta- 
tion, cooling  atmosphere  and  condensation  of  moisture,  change 
of  temperature  with  change  of  thermometric  reading,  being 
causally  related,  become  easily  impressed  upon  the  mind  when 
once  the  relationship  is  observed.  However,  as  was  previously 
pointed  out,  the  mere  fact  that  relationships  exist  between  ob- 
jective things  is  no  guaranty  of  their  being  observed  and  re- 
corded together.  As  further  examples,  it  might  be  mentioned 
that  the  relation  between  forests  and  rainfall  has  only  recently 
been  observed;  the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  a  new  dis- 
covery; the  bacterial  theory  of  disease  not  a  half-century  old. 
A  pupil  would  be  a  long  time  independently  discovering  the 
relations  between  varieties  of  soils  and  adaptable  crops; 
though  when  once  understood  they  become  indissolubly  con- 
nected. Just  so  with  multitudes  of  facts  in  geography,  science, 
and  history. 

The  import  of  this  paragraph  is  to  emphasize  the  necessity 
of  forming  systematic,  logical,  and  causal  relations  among 
series  of  facts  rather  than  depending  upon  artificial  associations. 
The  natural  relations  are  more  apt  to  be  forced  upon  the  mind 
repeatedly.  Too  much  of  geography  teaching  and  history  teach- 
ing is  made  to  depend  upon  absolutely  mechanical  associations, 
when  everything  could  be  presented  in  a  connected  series  of 
thoughtful  relations.  There  are  some  things  desirable  to  learn 
which  must  be  largely  isolated,  but  the  majority  of  all  knowledge, 
whether  in  school  or  out  of  it,  can  be  so  grouped  as  to  become 
woven  into  logical  relations.  People's  names  have  no  logical  re- 
lation to  their  possessors,  but  when  we  come  to  know  the  indi- 
vidual thoroughly,  his  habits,  his  temperament,  his  home,  his 
associates,  and  his  capacity,  the  name  becomes  so  complexly 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION      365 

associated  with  the  individual  that  a  multitude  of  suggesting 
strings  may  be  pulled,  any  one  of  which  will  recall  the  right 
name.  The  case  is  far  different  with  the  child  in  learning  the 
list  of  capes  on  the  coast  of  America,  or  the  boundaries  of  each 
of  the  States.  In  these  cases  there  is  only  one  sort  of  associa- 
tion, and  that  purely  artificial  and  mechanical.  When  the  child 
learns  rules  in  arithmetic  or  grammar  without  comprehending 
them,  the  associations  are  purely  arbitrary  and  mechanical. 
When  we  shall  have  become  entirely  free  from  such  atrocities 
committed  in  the  name  of  education,  a  day  of  rejoicing  may  be 
proclaimed. 

Similarity  of  Objects. — It  has  been  vigorously  argued  by  some 
that  here  we  have  an  elemental  law,  correlative  with  contiguity 
in  experience  or  even  still  more  basal.  I  regard  it,  however,  as 
being  reducible  to  contiguity  in  experience.  That  two  things 
are  similar  is  no  evidence  that  they  will  become  associated  in 
our  minds,  or  that  the  appearance  of  one  will  recall  the  other. 
These  occur  only  after  the  similarity  has  been  discovered  and  the 
relationship  established.  A  gas-jet  and  a  foot-ball  are,  in  certain 
respects,  similar  to  the  moon,  the  former  in  luminosity,  the  latter 
in  rotundity;  but  few  would  associate  them  unless  the  similarity 
had  been  pointed  out  and  dwelt  upon.  If  we  employ  the  term 
similarity,  we  must  make  it  include  similarity  of  relations  and  not 
alone  similarity  of  appearance.  Thus,  all  vehicles  are  similar 
though  they  differ  vastly  in  appearance.  Similarity  between 
governments,  customs,  physical  processes,  modes  of  transpor- 
tation, etc.,  would  all  be  included.  Correlative  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  ideas  of  similarities  should  be  a  search  for  contrasts. 
That  this  is  frequently  done  is  attested  by  the  fact  that  we  have 
built  up  in  our  minds  many  pairs  of  contrasted  words,  such  as, 
good  and  bad,  heat  and  cold,  long  and  short.  It  could  be 
shown,  however,  that  these  are  built  up  only  through  experience. 
They  do  not  become  united  spontaneously. 

Professor  James  repudiates  the  belief  of  the  older  psychol- 
ogists that  similarity  is  an  elementary  law  of  association.  He 
retains  the  term  merely  because  of  its  traditional  use,  but  rejects 


366  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

its  former  meaning.  Titchener  says  i1  "  In  the  older  psychologies 
we  read  of  various  'kinds'  of  association:  association  by  con- 
trast ('giant'  suggests  'dwarf'),  by  similarity  ('Dickens'  sug- 
gests 'Thackeray'),  by  contiguity  ('sea'  suggests  'ships, '  because 
the  two  are  seen  together),  by  cause  and  effect  (the  riven  oak- 
tree  suggests  the  lightning  that  struck  it),  by  means  and  end  (the 
idea  of  keeping  our  clothes  unspoilt  suggests  the  taking  of  an 
umbrella  with  us  when  we  go  out),  and  so  on.  It  is  clear,  how- 
ever, from  what  has  just  been  said,  that  these  are  not  'kinds'  of 
association — there  is  only  one  kind — but  merely  forms  of  it, 
arranged  for  convenience  under  certain  heads."  The  only 
reason  why  similar  objects  suggest  each  other  is  that  each  con- 
tains some  elements  which  are  common  and  which  have  been 
experienced  before.  Students  have  frequently  said  to  me, 
"  But  we  met  an  entire  stranger  A  who  reminded  us  of  a  friend 
B;  how  can  this  be  explained  by  contiguity  in  experience?" 
The  answer  is  as  follows: 
Let  the  two  persons  be  represented  by  the  following  scheme: 


m 
n 
o 
x 

y 

z 


B 


m 

c 

d 

e 

f 

(  g 


m,  n,  o,  e,  f,  etc.,  represent  characteristic  features  of  each  person. 
The  two  persons,  A  and  B,  are  different  in  all  characteristics 
except  one.  Now,  with  what  has  this  one  characteristic,  which 
you  have  seen  in  the  stranger,  always  been  associated?  With 
A,  and  by  the  law  of  coexistence  in  experience  it  will  now  be  re- 
ferred to  its  usual  associates.  The  two  wholes  may  never  have 
been  experienced  together,  but  the  single  element  common  to 
both  has  been  frequently  experienced  and  always  with  A. 
Consequently,  when  again  observed,  even  though  in  a  new 
combination,  B,  it  is  immediately  referred  to  the  old  familiar 
association  series,  A.  Therefore  the  new  whole,  B,  with  the  one 

1  A  Primer  of  Psychology,  p.  131. 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE:  OF  ASSOCIATION     367 

familiar  element  suggests  and  serves  to  recall  the  old  unit,  A, 
which  contains  the  one  familiar  element. 

Association  in  all  Experiences. — When  thinking  of  the  peda- 
gogical applications  of  association  we  must  not  overlook  the  multi- 
tude of  every-day  associations  that  we  do  make  and  should  make. 
Our  search  must  not  be  for  those  extremely  artificial  associa- 
tions we  sometimes  make  in  the  school  work,  like,  for  example, 
the  association  of  the  letters  v,  i,  b,  g,  y,  o,  r,  with  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  colors  of  the  spectrum,  or  "lower  and  lighter  and 
heavier  and  higher"  with  the  barometric  record,  or  the  year 
1066  with  the  six  Johns.  Every  act  of  perception,  every  process 
of  imagination,  every  complex  memory  process,  involves  the 
formation  of  associations,  and  also  involves  associations  previ- 
ously made.  Every  recall  in  memory,  every  judgment  we  form, 
every  act  of  reasoning,  every  emotional  thrill  that  affects  us,  de- 
pends upon  past  associations.  Association  is  no  occasional  visitor; 
it  is  an  ever-present  guest;  is  always  with  us,  bidden  or  unbidden. 

When  \ve  learned  to  walk  it  was  only  by  associating  a  certain 
amount  of  muscular  tension  in  one  part  with  a  certain  amount 
in  another,  the  association  of  these  with  so  much  space  covered, 
so  many  bumps  received  or  avoided,  and  the  co-ordinating  of  all 
these  into  the  process  of  walking  correctly,  easily,  automatically. 
Not  until  habit  had  perfectly  established  the  associations  and  co- 
ordinations did  the  process  become  at  all  perfect.  While  the 
habit  was  in  the  making,  the  process  was  awkward.  Learning 
to  talk  is  but  a  process  of  learning  to  associate  ideas  of  objects 
and  actions,  sounds  of  words,  and  muscular  movements  of  the 
vocal  organs.  The  child  very  slowly  associates  the  object  with 
the  word  as  heard.  Many  repetitions  are  necessary  to  estab- 
lish the  habit  of  thinking  that  connection.  Still  longer  does  it 
take  to  associate  the  movements  of  talking  with  the  sound  and 
the  object.  Learning  a  foreign  language  is  a  process  of  associa- 
tion, as  are  learning  to  read,  to  write,  to  spell,  to  sit,  to  skate,  to 
dance,  to  know  various  objects  and  their  uses. 

In  fact,  as  James  says:  "Your  pupils,  whatever  else  they  arc, 
are  at  any  rate  little  pieces  of  associating  machinery.  Their 


368 


PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 


education  consists  in  the  organizing  within  them  of  determinate 
tendencies  to  associate  one  thing  with  another, — impressions 
with  consequences,  these  with  reactions,  those  with  results,  and 
so  on  indefinitely.  The  more  copious  the  associative  systems, 
the  completer  the  individual's  adaptations  to  the  world."  :  The 
function  of  the  teacher  "is  mainly  that  of  building  up  useful 
systems  of  association  in  the  pupil's  mind."  *  He  writes  further: 
"In  working  associations  into  your  pupils'  minds,  you  must  not 


FIG.   32. — Diagrammatic  representation  of  the  associative  relations  between 
each  element  and  every  other  element  in  a  mechanical  associative  series. 

rely  on  single  cues,  but  multiply  the  cues  as  much  as  possible. 
Couple  the  desired  reaction  with  numerous  constellations  of 
antecedents, — don't  always  ask  the  question,  for  example,  in  the 
same  way;  don't  use  the  same  kind  of  data  in  numerical  prob- 
lems; vary  your  illustrations,  etc.,  as  much  as  you  can."  : 

In  a  train  of  mechanical  associations  it  has  been  indicated  that 
the  association  is  directly  between  a  given  element  and  the  one 
succeeding  it,  as  a-b-c,  etc.  It  should  be  noted,  however,  that 
there  is  a  certain  relation  established  between  each  of  the  ele- 
ments and  all  the  others.  This  may  be  represented  by  the  dia- 
gram (Fig.  32).  It  is  the  entire  thought-train  which  is  related, 
and  not  only  the  immediately  adjacent  elements.  Were  this  not 
true,  our  memories  would  often  play  us  queer  tricks.  Suppose  we 
had  memorized  the  two  following  lines  as  suggested  by  James: 

I,  the  heir  of  all^  ,in  the  foremost  files  of  time. 

For  I  doubt  not  through/  \one  increasing  purpose  runs 

1  James,  Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology,  p.  82.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  89. 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  ASSOCIATION       369 

Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  each  word  is  linked  with  the  entire 
thought  process,  on  recalling  the  lines  we  should  be  just  as  apt  to 
switch  from  the  first  line  to  the  second  on  reaching  the  common 
words  "the  ages."  Sometimes  such  cases  occur.  I  remember 
that  I  once  switched  from  one  oration  to  another,  entirely  differ- 
ent in  content,  but  which  had  a  sentence  also  used  in  the  first  one. 

Verbal  Associations. — Although  we  employ  words  in  all  our 
higher  trains  of  association,  we  often  forget  the  indispensable 
part  that  they  play  in  the  process.  In  the  section  on  thought 
and  language  it  is  shown  that,  although  thinking  may  be  car- 
ried on  without  words,  the  highest  forms  of  thinking  necessi- 
tate the  employment  of  words.  Much  thinking  is  done  by 
means  of  imagery.  This  is  best  exemplified  in  the  case  of  the 
lower  animals  and  mutes,  though  all  normal  human  beings 
do  much  thinking  in  imagery.  But  only  the  lowest  forms  of 
thinking  can  be  carried  on  without  the  use  of  symbols.  Not 
only  are  the  animals  dumb  because  they  are  low  in  mental 
power,  but  they  are  low  in  mental  power  because  they  do  not 
speak.  Not  only  did  man  acquire  language  when  he  reached  a 
certain  stage  of  development,  but  his  development  was  im- 
measurably furthered  through  this  acquisition.  Language  is 
not  only  a  means  of  expression,  but  a  means  of  acquiring  ideas. 
With  the  words  or  symbols  are  associated  all  the  various  ideas  of 
sight,  sound,  touch,  smell,  taste,  muscular  tension,  pleasure,  pain, 
etc.  Take  the  word  ball,  for  example.  The  idea  of  ball  in- 
cludes a  great  variety  of  impressions,  such  as  size,  color,  hard- 
ness, and  pain  or  pleasure  in  catching.  The  word  ball  connotes 
and  symbolizes  all  those  ideas.  Without  words  ideas  can  only 
be  experienced  through  imagery,  a  cumbrous  process  when  so 
complex  an  idea  as  home,  for  instance,  is  taken.  But  with  the 
word  we  have  a  representation  of  all  the  qualities  and  charac- 
teristics known  to  us.  It  is  the  tie  that  binds.  It  is  thus  a 
means  of  mental  economy  and  renders  possible  the  formation  of 
concepts. 

From  the  stand-point  of  the  pedagogy  of  association  and  mem- 
ory it  is  important  to  urge  careful  attention  to  the  naming  of  in- 


370  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

dividual  perceptual  ideas,  and  also  to  the  formation  of  accurate 
statements  of  conceptual  notions.  Oftentimes  teaching  pro- 
ceeds carefully  enough  in  details,  but  stops  short  of  concept 
forming  and  concept  stating.  The  statement  of  the  concept  is 
the  symbolic  representation  of  the  concept  and  stands  for  the 
whole  complex  of  ideas  connoted  in  the  concept.  The  mind  does 
not  need  to  go  over  all  the  details,  but  is  satisfied  with  the  symbol, 
much  as  one  is  satisfied  with  a  bank-note  which  only  represents 
wealth.  These  trains  of  thought  which  can  be  imagined  or 
built  up  through  actual  perception  can  be  carried  on  without  the 
use  of  language.  But  even  in  ideas  that  can  be  perceived  or 
represented  through  imagery  words  play  a  most  important  role. 
Classification  of  ideas  cannot  progress  far  without  recourse  to 
words.  All  the  parts  of  speech  represent  classified  ideas.  No 
matter  whether  a  word  is  a  common  noun,  a  verb,  or  an  adjec- 
tive, it  represents  a  complex  idea  which  is  brought  together  under 
the  general  class  and  ticketed  with  a  symbol.  These  processes 
of  acquiring,  arranging,  and  conserving  knowledge  are  all  proc- 
esses of  association.  The  laws  governing  them  must  be  un- 
derstood and  followed  if  education  proceeds  economically  and 
wisely. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY 

UPON  few  other  technical  questions  is  the  layman  so  willing 
to  deliver  opinions  as  upon  methods  of  improving  memory.  He 
does  not  feel  it  hazardous  to  do  so,  but  regards  his  conclusions 
as  incontrovertible.  The  usual  advice  is  to  memorize  much, 
verbatim  and  mechanically.  Set  apart  a  portion  of  every  day 
for  committing  verses,  proverbs,  speeches,  or  strings  of  dates. 
It  is  asserted  that  the  gymnastics  thus  used  will  strengthen  the 
memory,  not  only  in  the  particular  direction,  but  also  equally 
as  much  in  all  other  directions.  It  is  assumed  that  the  memory 
is  a  general  power,  capable  of  memorizing  anything  when  once 
developed.  On  this  theory  "the  memory  organ"  might  be 
likened  to  a  muscle,  the  fibre  of  which  can  be  strengthened  by 
general  gymnastics.  Let  us  investigate  to  ascertain  the  facts 
which  have  a  bearing  upon  the  question. 

Biological  Interpretation. — In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  single 
power  of  memory  which  memorizes  everything.  There  is  no 
receptacle  which  stores  all  facts  of  life  with  equal  fidelity. 
Memory  is  a  dynamic  condition  produced  through  experience. 
It  consists  of  functional  relations  established  in  the  physical 
organism  or  in  the  mind,  which  may  be  awakened  by  appropri- 
ate stimuli.  It  is  more  appropriate  to  speak  of  memories  than 
memory.  This  view  is  then  opposed  to  the  theory  of  general 
improvement  through  special  training.  James  says  that  reten- 
tion "  is  a  purely  physical  phenomenon,  a  morphological  feature, 
the  presence  of  these  'paths,'  namely,  in  the  finest  recesses  of  the 
brain's  tissue."  And  further,  "memory  being  thus  altogether 
conditioned  on  brain  paths,  its  excellence  in  a  given  individual 
u'ill  depend  partly  on  the  number  and  partly  on  the  persistence 
oj  these  paths.  The  persistence  or  permanence  of  the  paths  is 


372  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

a  physiological  property  of  the  brain-tissue  of  the  individual, 
whilst  their  number  is  altogether  due  to  the  facts  of  his  mental 
experience.  Let  the  quality  of  permanence  in  the  paths  be 
called  the  native  tenacity,  or  physiological  retentiveness.  This 
tenacity  differs  enormously  from  infancy  to  old  age,  and  from 
one  person  to  another.  Some  minds  are  like  wax  under  a  seal 
— no  impression,  however  disconnected  with  others,  is  wiped 
out.  Others,  like  a  jelly,  vibrate  to  every  touch,  but  under 
usual  conditions  retain  no  permanent  mark."  1 

Lloyd  Morgan  says:2  "Retentiveness  is,  in  fact,  to  a  large 
extent  a  psycho-physiological  datum;  something  given  in  the 
brain-structure  and  mental  character  of  each  individual;  some- 
thing which  we  can  no  more  alter  than  we  can  alter  the  size  of 
our  heads,  or  to  take  what  is  perhaps  a  closer  analogy,  the  size  of 
our  muscles.  By  careful  use  and  training  we  may  develop  our 
muscles  within  the  limits  assigned  to  them  by  nature.  So,  too, 
by  careful  exercise  we  may  perhaps  develop  our  retentiveness 
within  the  limits  assigned  to  it  by  nature." 

One  of  the  most  important  discoveries  concerning  the  memory, 
therefore,  is  that  the  native  capacity  for  retentiveness  in  a  given 
individual  is  unchangeable  by  training,  and  is  only  modifiable 
by  a  change  of  health,  by  changes  in  nutrition,  and  by  changes 
incident  to  growth  and  development  at  different  ages.  This 
statement  is  not  intended  to  mean  that  one  cannot  improve  cer- 
tain factors  of  memory,  or  that  memory  as  a  means  of  acquisi- 
tion cannot  be  greatly  enhanced.  But  the  mere  capacity  for 
conserving  impressions  of  a  given  intensity,  duration,  and  with- 
out associations  cannot  be  increased  by  training.  This  hypothe- 
sis has  been  tested  at  several  times  and  seems  now  to  be  well 
established  as  a  fact. 

Experimental  Evidence. — Professor  James  mentions  several 
experiments  that  were  made  in  testing  the  validity  of  this 
hypothesis.  He  says : 3  u  In  order  to  test  the  opinion  so  confidently 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  pp.  655,  659. 

2  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology,  p.  107. 

3  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  pp.  666-668. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    373 

expressed  in  the  text,  I  have  tried  to  see  whether  a  certain  amount 
of  daily  training  in  learning  poetry  by  heart  will  shorten  the 
time  it  takes  to  learn  an  entirely  different  kind  of  poetry.  Dur- 
ing eight  successive  days  I  learned  158  lines  of  Victor  Hugo's 
'Satyr.'  The  total  number  of  minutes  required  for  this  was 
T3l5/6 — it  should  be  said  that  I  had  learned  nothing  by  heart  for 
many  years.  I  then,  working  for  twenty  odd  minutes  daily, 
learned  the  entire  first  book  of  'Paradise  Lost,'  occupying  38 
days  in  the  process.  After  this  training  I  went  back  to  Victor 
Hugo's  poem,  and  found  that  158  additional  lines  (divided  ex- 
actly as  on  the  former  occasion)  took  me  151%  minutes.  In 
other  words,  I  committed  my  Victor  Hugo  to  memory  before  the 
training  at  the  rate  of  a  line  in  50  seconds,  after  the  training  at  the 
rate  of  a  line  in  57  seconds,  just  the  opposite  result  from  that 
which  the  popular  view  would  lead  one  to  expect.  But  as  I  was 
perceptibly  fagged  with  other  work  at  the  time  of  the  second 
batch  of  Victor  Hugo,  I  thought  that  might  explain  the  re- 
tardation; so  I  persuaded  several  other  persons  to  repeat  the 
test." 

Dr.  W.  H.  Burnham,  who  tried  the  same  method,  learned 
for  8  days  previous  to  training  16  lines  of  "In  Memoriam" 
each  day.  This  required  14  to  17  minutes  daily,  average  14! 
minutes.  As  training  he  committed  daily  for  26  consecutive 
days  Schiller's  translation  of  the  second  book  of  the  "/Eneid." 
This  afforded  an  entirely  different  kind  of  material  from  the 
preliminary  test.  Returning  to  "In  Memoriam,"  he  found 
the  average  time  for  16  lines  to  be  14$$  minutes — maximum 
20,  minimum  10.  Mr.  E.  A.  Pease  made  a  preliminary  test 
on  "Idyls  of  the  King,"  then  trained  himself  on  "Paradise 
Lost"  (length  of  time  and  daily  amount  should  be  given,  but 
are  not).  The  average  time  for  a  given  number  of  lines  in  the 
6  days  preliminary  to  the  training  was  14^0  minutes,  for  the 
test  after  training,  14!-$. 

In  order  to  bring  the  matter  before  my  students  in  a  concrete 
way,  I  persuaded  two  of  them  to  undertake  a  series  of  experi- 
ments, covering  in  one  case  35  days  and  in  the  other  50  days. 


374  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Five  days  in  each  case  were  taken  for  the  preliminary  tests,  5 
for  the  final  tests  for  comparison,  and  25  and  40  days  respec- 
tively for  the  drill.  The  preliminary  tests  consisted  in  the 
memorizing  of  miscellaneous  matter,  such  as  lists  of  nonsense 
syllables,  lists  of  figures,  selections  of  poetry,  pieces  of  prose  of 
varying  degrees  of  difficulty,  one  being  from  Harper's  Fourth 
Reader  and  the  other  from  Bering's  Memory,  a  list  of  twenty 
titles  of  unfamiliar  books,  and  the  names  on  a  series  of  bottles 
holding  chemical  reagents.  Each  test  was  concluded  as  soon 
as  any  fatigue  was  noticeable.  They  thus  varied  somewhat  in 
length.  Only  one  test  of  a  kind  was  taken  at  a  given  sitting, 
and  the  tests  were  throughout  so  varied  and  unexpected  in  char- 
acter to  the  student  that  there  was  no  possible  chance  for  the 
effects  of  practice  to  enter  into  them.1  Both  of  the  students 
were  unfamiliar  with  chemical  nomenclature,  and  the  labels 
were  partly  in  words  and  partly  in  symbols,  e.  g.,  HNOt  and 
Hydric  Acetate.  When  learning  the  list  of  unfamiliar  book 
titles,  only  the  backs  of  the  books  were  exposed,  so  as  to  shut 
out  as  many  associations  as  possible  of  names  with  books.  It 
was,  however,  rendered  easier  by  the  sizes  and  colors  than  a  list 
merely  written  or  pronounced.  There  were  25  nonsense  sylla- 
bles in  each  list,  and  the  number  list  contained  47  digits,  ar- 
ranged so  as  not  to  be  in  a  serial  order.  Each  was  to  be  learned 
as  a  separate  number.  Thus  there  were  tests  in  which  as  many 
associations  as  possible  were  removed,  lists  in  which  as  many 
association  helps  as  possible  were  included,  and  then  intermediate 
lists.  (Instead  of  figures  and  letters,  arbitrary  characters  and 
forms  might  perhaps  have  been  given  to  be  drawn,  and  arbi- 
trary sounds  might  have  been  uttered  to  be  reproduced.  This 
would  have  excluded  association  still  more.)  A  list  was  re- 
garded as  memorized  when  it  could  be  repeated  or  written 
(as  the  student  chose),  with  a  minimum  number  of  mistakes 
— omissions,  transpositions,  or  substitutions.  It  would  have 

1  In  James's  tests  it  seems  as  if  practice  on  the  preliminaries  and  finals  might 
affect  the  results.  He  discredits  two  other  series  recorded  by  him  in  which  the 
preliminary  practice  and  finals  occupied  fifteen  and  sixteen  days  respectively. 
See  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  p.  667. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    375 

been  interesting  to  determine  how  much  could  have  been  re- 
produced after  certain  lapses  of  time.  This  was  contemplated 
in  the  beginning,  but,  in  the  press  of  other  duties,  after  being 
only  partially  completed,  had  to  be  abandoned. 

One  of  the  students,  after  the  preliminary  results,  trained  her- 
self for  40  days  by  committing  for  20  minutes  daily  parts  of 
Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam,"  learning  the  introduction  and  17 
sections.  The  other  student  took  for  her  memory  gymnastics 
30  minutes  daily  of  mechanical  memorizing,  which  she  was  able 
to  continue  25  days.  She  did  not  drill  on  one  form  of  compo- 
sition, but  alternated,  according  to  interest,  between  prose  and 
poetry.  The  final  tests  for  comparison  with  the  preliminaries 
were  of  the  same  kind  and  amounts,  and  given  under  the  same 
conditions,  as  the  preliminary  tests.  The  lists  of  nonsense 
syllables,  digits,  book  titles,  chemical  labels,  etc.,  contained  the 
same  number  as  in  the  corresponding  preliminary  test,  and  the 
material  for  continuous  discourse  was  from  the  same  selections 
as  used  in  the  preliminary  test. 

On  comparing  the  results  "before  taking"  and  "after  tak- 
ing," and  considering  all  conditions,  both  of  the  students  vol- 
untarily stated  in  written  reports  of  the  experiments  that  they 
believed  James  was  right.  In  some  parts  of  the  tests  subse- 
quent to  the  practice,  slight  gains  were  shown.  In  some  others 
losses  were  disclosed,  and  in  others  no  changes.  The  gains  were 
more  numerous,  but  the  losses  greater  in  amount  than  were  the 
gains.  For  example,  student  A  committed  267  words  of  poetry 
in  30  minutes  before  practice,  and  only  189  words  of  the  same 
selection  after  practice.  Student  B  committed  260  words  of 
poetry  in  the  same  period  before  practice,  and  only  200  after 
practice.  In  one  case  47  digits  were  learned  in  15%  minutes 
before  practice,  while  it  took  only  lo1/,  minutes  after  practice. 
Neither  the  gains  nor  losses  have  any  special  significance.  The 
gains  are  more  noticeable  in  the  purely  mechanical  forms  where 
methods  of  learning  could  be  standardized.  The  variations 
probably  represent  different  conditions  of  the  learner.  The 
gains  ought  to  predominate  over  the  losses  with  no  other  influ- 


376  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

ence  than  that  of  the  discovery  of  the  best  methods  of  learning 
the  particular  kind  of  material.  A  slight  gain  from  this  source 
ought  to  be  expected.  Such  gain  would  not  contradict  James's 
position.  In  all  of  the  instances  where  gains  were  shown,  the 
students  explained  that  they  had  been  able  to  acquire  a  peculiar 
knack  or  trick  of  grouping  the  materials.  It  was  also  true,  in 
the  same  cases,  that  more  mistakes  and  more  substitutions  oc- 
curred, and  the  subject  did  not  feel  so  sure  of  the  results.  In  the 
cases  of  the  book  titles  both  students  said  that  it  happened  that 
a  few  partially  familiar  titles  came  in  the  second  list  and  none 
in  the  first. 

Since  James  published  his  conclusions,  which  seemed  some- 
what startling  at  the  time,  a  great  many  experimental  investiga- 
tions have  been  made  under  strictly  scientific  laboratory  condi- 
tions. The  most  important  of  such  investigations  are  indicated 
in  the  footnote.1  While  some  of  the  results,  especially  those  of 
Meumann,  show  that  some  gain  follows  after  considerable  prac- 
tice in  memorizing  a  given  kind  of  material,  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  gains  are  usually  found  in  connection  with  the  purely 
mechanical  types  of  memorizing.  "It  will  also  be  seen,"  says 
Pillsbury,2  "that  there  is  a  tendency  for  the  gain  to  be  greatest  in 
material  that  is  most  closely  related  to  that  on  which  the  practice 
was  obtained."  These  might  be  expected,  and  indicate,  not 
any  special  change  in  a  general  ability,  or  a  transference,  but  a 
gain  in  the  method  of  learning.  Fracker  found  some  slight 
gains  in  some  tests,  in  others  none.  He  is  of  the  opinion  that 
there  is  only  a  limited  spread  of  training,  and  that  all  "trans- 
ference depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  imagery  employed  in 

1  Meumann,  Arch.  f.  d.  gcsam.  Psych.,  vol.  IV;  Grundfragcn  der  Psych.,  chap, 
on    "  Ubungsphanomene    dcs    Gedachtnisscs,"    Leipsic,    1904;     "Vorlesungen 
zur  Einfiihrung  in  die  Expcrimentelle  Padagogik,"  Leipsic,   1907;    Miiller  u. 
Pilzecker,   "Experiment.     Beitrage  zur  Lehre  vom   Gedachtnis,"   Zeitsch.  f. 
Psych,  u.  Phys.  d.  Sinnesorg.,  1900;    Binet  et  Henri,  "La  memoire  des  mots," 
Annee  psychol.,  I,  1895;    Bolton,  T.  L.,  "The  Growth  of  Memory  in  School 
Children,"  Am.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  1892;    Shaw,  "A  Test  of  Memory  in  School 
Children,"  Fed.  Sem.,  1896;    Henderson,  E.  N.,  "A  Study  of  Memory  for  Con- 
nected Trains  of  Thought,"  Psych.  Rev.,  Monograph  Sup.,  No.  5,  1903;  Lobsien, 
"  Uber  das  Gedachtnis,  u.  s.  w.,"  Beitr.  z.  Psych,  der  Aussagc,  II,  1906. 

2  Educational  Review,  June,  1908. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    377 

practice,  rather  than  upon  any  other  factor."1  The  materials 
for  the  test,  in  all  the  investigations  that  have  come  to  my  notice, 
are  quite  similar  for  the  practice  and  the  comparisons.  Meu- 
mann  has  been  quoted  widely  by  opponents  of  the  position  taken 
by  James,  because  Meumann  has  found  such  definite  gains.  He 
attributes  the  main  gain  to  similarity  of  elements  in  the  different 
materials  memorized,  and  to  improvements  in  methods  of  learn- 
ing. He  also  believes  that  there  was  some  training  of  a  com- 
mon capacity  for  memorizing.  Pillsbury2  says,  "This  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  a  necessary  conclusion,  for  no  one  knows  how 
the  gain  due  to  these  secondary  factors  stands  to  the  total 
amount  of  improvement.  One  cannot  be  sure,  therefore,  that 
all  of  the  gain  is  or  is  not  to  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  change 
in  these  capacities  that  are  generally  assumed  to  be  susceptible 
of  training."  The  words  of  Meumann  should  be  quoted  in  this 
connection.  He  asks  the  question  whether  Lernfdhigkeit  (power 
of  learning)  or  Behalten  (retention)  is  the  more  modifiable  by 
exercise?  He  answers:  "The  capacity  for  learning  or  acquir- 
ing! The  power  of  retention  appears  more  as  a  constant  which 
is  determined  by  the  age  and  stage  of  development  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  capacity  for  learning,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
power  which  depends  entirely  upon  habits  of  exercise,  Reten- 
tion is  conditioned  by  the  gradual  unfoldment  of  the  native 
predispositions  of  the  psycho-physical  organism.  Learning  is 
more  dependent  upon  the  momentary  influence  of  particular 
forms  of  exercise  in  acquisition."  3 

The  every-day  experiences  of  life  ought  to  confirm  the  general 
idea  that  the  effects  of  memory  training  are  not  very  generalized. 
One  has  a  given  type  of  memory  which  is  apparently  very  little 
changed  through  life.  The  one  who  " learns  by  heart"  easily  in 
childhood  generally  possesses  the  same  type  in  adult  life,  and 
those  children  who  acquire  with  difficulty,  or  who  forget  quickly, 
usually  have  the  same  traits  when  grown  up.  If  training  in 

1  Fracker,   "  On  the  Transference  of  Training  in  Memory,"  Psych.    Rev- 
Monograph  Sup.,  No.  38,  1908. 

2  Loc.  cit.  8  Vorlesungen,  p.  201. 


378  PRINCIPLES  "OF  EDUCATION 

special  lines  produced  general  improvement,  the  lessons  in 
arithmetic,  geography,  and  history  ought  to  modify  the  tend- 
encies to  a  marked  degree.  The  scholar  ought  also  to  have 
a  vastly  better  memory  than  the  unschooled,  but  on  matters  of 
equal  comprehension  to  both,  the  scholar  possesses  no  advan- 
tage over  the  one  without  the  long  years  of  training.  Again,  if 
there  were  a  general  transference  of  effects,  no  individual  ought 
to  have  varieties  of  memories  for  different  things;  but  such  are 
very  common  characteristics  of  individuals.  In  abnormal  con- 
ditions memory  may  be  lost  for  one  kind  of  speech  and  not  for 
another.  If  there  is  a  uniform  transference  of  effects,  why  could 
one  disappear  and  leave  the  others  unaffected  ?  In  normal  life 
the  individual  variations  are  often  very  marked.  One  distin- 
guished scholar  of  my  acquaintance,  with  exceptionally  keen 
general  powers  of  learning  and  of  retaining  ideas,  never  can 
trust  himself  to  quote  a  line  of  poetry.  He  quotes  prose  with 
perfect  accuracy.  He  also  has  no  musical  memory.  His 
special  field  of  scholarship  is  language.  My  own  power  of  re- 
membering names  and  addresses  is  something  out  of  the  ordi- 
nary, while  I  have  never  been  able  to  commit  to  memory  either 
poetry  or  prose  without  the  greatest  difficulty. 

The  modern  doctrines  of  physics,  biology,  and  psychology  all 
ought  to  teach  us  that  life  is  a  unity  and  that,  therefore,  educa- 
tion of  one  power  of  body  or  mind  ought  to  affect,  in  some  de- 
gree, other  parts  of  the  organism.  The  same  sciences,  on  the 
other  hand,  ought  to  teach  just  as  definitely  that  all  organs  or 
powers  of  an  organism,  while  completely  interrelated  and  a  part 
of  the  unity  of  forces,  are  still  in  a  great  measure  independent. 
The  development  of  one  part  energizes  the  entire  organism  to 
some  extent,  but  by  far  the  greatest  effects  inhere  in  the  part 
directly  affected. 

From  the  pedagogical  point  of  view  it  ought  to  be  thoroughly 
apparent  that  the  general  type  of  memory  of  a  given  individual 
is  little  modifiable  by  training;  and  further,  that  acquisition  of 
facts  in  a  given  line  for  the  purpose  of  general  gymnastics  is  an 
utterly  untenable  position.  "  Suffice  it  to  say,"  says  Pillsbury, 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    379 

"  that  memory  for  any  range  of  facts  will  be  trained  more  com- 
pletely by  practice  in  that  field  than  in  some  other,  just  as  training 
in  rowing  is  more  effective  in  that  sport  than  in  football."  Miss 
Gamble  writes,1  in  the  latest  deliverance  on  the  subject,  after  a 
very  long  experimental  study,  that:  "It  is  probable  that  practice 
is  transferable  only  within  very  narrow  limits.  It  is  probable 
also  that  one's  'brute  retentiveness'  cannot  be  improved  by 
training.  Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  a  very  great  difference 
can  be  made  by  training  in  what  one  can  do  with  one's  brute 
retentiveness  along  specific  lines." 

Health  and  Memory. — The  previous  discussion  of  retention 
indicates  that  retentiveness  is  a  physiological  phenomenon, 
depending  upon  nutrition  for  its  permanence.  This  being  true, 
it  is  evident  that  whatever  seriously  interferes  with  fundamental 
states  of  bodily  health  must  affect  the  processes  of  memory. 
Pedagogically  this  must  be  considered  with  reference  to  both 
the  registration  of  facts  and  their  attempted  recall.  A  few  facts 
will  confirm  the  foregoing  conclusions.  "A  young  woman,  of 
robust  constitution  and  good  health,  accidentally  fell  into  a 
river  and  was  nearly  drowned.  For  six  hours  she  was  insensi- 
ble, but  then  returned  to  consciousness.  Ten  days  later  she 
was  seized  with  a  stupor  which  lasted  for  four  hours.  When 
she  opened  her  eyes  she  failed  to  recognize  her  friends,  and 
was  utterly  deprived  of  the  senses  of  hearing,  taste,  and  smell, 
as  well  as  the  power  of  speech.  .  .  .  She  had  no  remembrance 
from  day  to  day  of  what  she  had  been  doing  the  previous  day, 
and  so  every  morning  commenced  de  novo.  She  gradually,  how- 
ever, began,  like  a  child,  to  register  ideas  and  acquire  ex- 
perience. ...  But  every  day  she  began  something  new,  unless 
her  unfinished  work  was  placed  before  her,  forgetting  what 
had  been  done  the  day  before."  :  Some  twelve  months  later 
her  bodily  and  mental  health  were  restored  and  she  regained  her 
vocabulary  and  her  senses,  though  very  gradually.  The  year 

1  "A  Study  in  Memorizing  Various  Materials  by  the  Reconstruction  Method," 
Psych.  Rev.,  Monograph  Sup.,  No.  43,  p.  210,  1909. 

2  Ribot,  Diseases  of  Memory,  p.  90. 


380  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

was  a  period  of  complete  oblivion.  This  shows  that  the  ac- 
cident not  only  caused  a  cessation  of  normal  recall  of  the 
previous  experiences,  but  also  that  the  registration  during  that 
period  amounted  to  practically  nothing  for  her  subsequent 
life. 

Carpenter  relates1  that  Sir  Henry  Holland,  an  English  physi- 
cian, while  visiting  the  mines  in  the  Hartz  Mountains  became 
over-fatigued  and,  as  a  consequence,  suddenly  forgot  all  his 
knowledge  of  German.  Holland  wrote:  "I  descended  on  the 
same  day  two  very  deep  mines  in  the  Hartz  Mountains,  remain- 
ing some  hours  underground  in  each.  While  in  the  second 
mine,  and  exhausted  both  from  fatigue  and  inanition,  I  felt  the 
utter  impossibility  of  talking  longer  with  the  German  inspector 
who  accompanied  me.  Every  German  word  and  phrase  de- 
serted my  recollection,  and  it  was  not  until  I  had  taken  food 
and  wine,  and  been  some  time  at  rest,  that  I  regained  them 
again."  Halleck  says:  "  A  professor  gave  the  same  extempore 
lecture  on  two  different  days;  the  first  time  at  n  A.  M.  He 
then  showed  easy  mastery  of  his  subject,  and  he  held  the  atten- 
tion of  his  audience  easily  from  first  to  last.  The  second  time 
he  began  speaking  at  4  P.  M.,  and  he  never  once  seemed  to  be 
master  of  the  subject,  although  he  was  evidently  laboring  very 
hard  to  be  impressive.  Many  of  the  audience  were  yawning 
and  shifting  their  positions.  In  commenting  afterward  on  his 
feelings  that  afternoon,  he  said  that  he  had  never  experienced  a 
sense  of  greater  effort,  that  instead  of  the  ideas  flowing  from  him 
easily  and  naturally  as  on  the  morning  of  the  previous  lecture,  he 
had  to  take  a  cudgel  and  drive  them  all  out  of  the  cave  in  which 
they  seemed  to  be  endeavoring  to  conceal  themselves."  :  In  my 
own  case  I  was  once  so  situated  that  I  gave  the  same  classwork 
in  three  successive  sections.  On  several  occasions  where  I  had 
given  an  extempore  lecture  to  the  first  two  sections  with  ease 
and  without  difficulty  in  finding  topics  and  appropriate  words, 
I  came  near  breaking  down  in  confusion  in  the  third  section, 

1  Mental  Physiology,  p.  441. 

2  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,  p.  65. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    381 

through  inability  to  recall  my  points  or  the  words  in  which  to 
illuminate  them.  This  result  was  due  to  sheer  exhaustion. 

Attention,  Concentration,  and  Memory. — Halleck  says:  "A 
study  of  the  physical  aspects  of  attention  is  necessary  in  order 
that  we  may  do  the  most  effective  mental  work.  If  we  notice 
ourselves  carefully,  we  can  often  detect  a  distinct  physical  strain 
in  attention.  If  we  innervate  our  ears  to  catch  the  first  sound  of 
a  coming  footstep;  if  we  continuously  follow  the  flight  of  a  bird 
across  the  heavens;  if  we  pass  our  fingers  over  various  fabrics 
to  detect  a  difference, — we  are  conscious  of  a  physical  tension, 
which,  if  unintermitted,  produces  fatigue."  x  Attention  produces 
not  only  the  same  chemical  effects  and  the  same  fatigue  as  mus- 
cular exertion  does,  but  we  feel  also  the  characteristic  muscular 
strain  on  the  occiput,  the  forehead,  and  other  parts  of  the  body. 

Pupils  should  early  appreciate  that  only  with  undivided  at- 
tention can  they  learn  to  advantage.  They  should  understand 
that  they  need  quiet  surroundings;  that  they  must  be  free  from 
disturbances  from  the  outside,  and  from  distracting  thoughts 
from  within.  Only  when  the  mind  is  completely  centred  upon 
a  given  problem  can  it  be  properly  mastered.  Any  extraneous 
thoughts  of  the  last  night's  party,  the  coming  commencement, 
or  the  bit  of  gossip  which  they  would  like  to  retail  must  all  be 
resolutely  avoided.  If  they  would  have  much  time  for  real  en- 
joyment, due  concentration  upon  the  tasks  will  the  quicker  in- 
sure opportunity  for  relaxation.  Lessons  will  be  learned  in  less 
time  and  more  firmly  fixed.  There  is  no  student  habit  more 
desirable,  none  more  often  unlearned,  and  none  more  difficult 
to  fix  than  that  of  undivided  attention.  Some  one  wrote  that 
"  there  is  one  safe,  serviceable,  indispensable,  attainable  quality 
— that  of  attention;  it  will  grow  in  the  poorest  soil  and  in  its  own 
good  time  bring  forth  abundant  fruit."  Teachers  frequently 
overlook  this  and  omit  to  provide  desirable  conditions  for  con- 
centration. Classes  are  often  required  to  study  in  rooms  where 
others  are  reciting,  in  rooms  adjacent  to  elevators,  or  near  noisy 
streets.  Even  in  colleges  and  universities  students  are  often  re- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  66. 


382  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

quired  or  encouraged  to  take  voluminous  notes  during  lectures 
or  discussions.  They  strive  to  write  all  the  lecturer  says  and  at 
the  same  time  to  understand  him.  They  try  to  get  the  lecture 
to  carry  under  their  arms  instead  of  in  their  heads.  A  frequent 
result  is  that  the  ideas  are  left  vague  and  the  incomplete  tran- 
scription proves  as  meaningless  as  Chinese  when  referred  to  just 
before  the  examination. 

Much  attention  has  very  properly  been  given  to  the  details  of 
the  recitation;  but  altogether  too  little  thought  has  been  di- 
rected toward  adequate  facilities  for  study  hours  and  their 
proper  observance.  Pupils  are  frequently*  required  to  learn  les- 
sons outside  of  school.  In  a  great  majority  of  cases  they  have 
the  most  unfavorable  surroundings  for  the  pursuit  of  such  work. 
They  have  to  study  in  the  general  living-room,  a  small  table  only 
is  provided  for  the  whole  family,  a  single,  ill-adapted  light  is 
furnished,  and  the  family  work,  visiting,  and  gossip  are  not  in- 
frequently carried  on  simultaneously  in  the  same  room.  The 
child  can  seldom  have  a  light  to  himself  or  a  table  large  enough 
for  writing.  Every  child  who  has  home  work  should  have 
table  space  as  large  as  a  school  desk  (and  that  is  inadequate  for 
a  real  student) ,  and  the  lamp  should  not  be  shared  by  more  than 
two.  Rightly,  each  child  should  have  his  own  room  where  he 
can  be  undisturbed. 

Proper  Study  Periods. — Much  energy  in  study  is  often  dissi- 
pated because  pupils  do  not  know  what  is  to  be  learned — they 
do  not  know  what  to  concentrate  upon.  Clearness  and  defi- 
niteness  in  assigning  lessons,  a  due  consideration  of  the  apper- 
ceptive  data  already  possessed,  and  proper  conditions  for  study 
would  do  more  for  the  recitations  than  any  patent  methods  of 
questioning  or  conducting  recitations.  Pupils  need  to  be 
taught  how  to  study  in  order  to  accomplish  it  economically  and 
efficiently.  Many  of  our  best  educators  are  coming  to  insist 
upon  due  attention  to  the  proper  assignment  of  work.  A  con- 
siderable part  of  many  recitation  periods  should  be  devoted  to 
planning  methods  of  attacking  the  new  problems.  Too  many 
teachers  regard  the  class  period  as  a  time  for  pumping  the  pupil 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    383 

m  order  to  square  accounts.  Not  infrequently  they  pump 
from  a  dry  well.  Extreme  misinterpretation  of  the  Socratic 
method  of  questioning  has  led  teachers  to  believe  that  they  must 
not  instruct  or  teach,  but  merely  question  and  record.  Their 
greatest  function  is  to  teach  and  to  guide  in  methods  of  acqui- 
sition. Dutton  says:  "Supervise  the  study  periods.  The 
teacher  who  asks  his  pupils  to  study,  and  then  proceeds  to  write 
letters  or  make  up  his  reports,  is  not  only  losing  an  opportunity, 
but  is  violating  his  trust.  He  should  be  at  the  service  of  his 
pupils,  passing  around  from  one  to  the  other,  giving  the  needed 
word  of  advice  or  encouragement,  making  sure  that  all  the  con- 
ditions for  earnest  work  are  as  favorable  as  possible."  l 

Pupils  need  time  to  think.  A  high-school  pupil  once  said: 
"All  our  time  is  so  taken  up  with  learning  our  lessons  and  re- 
citing, that  we  have  no  time  to  think."  Alas!  is  not  this  in- 
dictment too  often  true?  In  the  hurry  of  activities,  in  school 
and  out,  \vith  the  methods  employed,  when  do  the  pupils  really 
find  time  to  reflect  upon  what  they  are  doing  ?  There  should  be 
frequent  times  in  the  pursuit  of  every  subject  when  the  learner 
may  have  time  for  meditation,  sustained  reflection,  and  oppor- 
tunity for  independent  organization  of  the  work  in  his  own 
mind. 

I  have  found  it  very  helpful  in  advanced  classes  to  assign 
written  reviews  to  be  worked  out  at  home.  Some  help  is  usually 
necessary  in  organization,  but  only  the  main  features  are  sug- 
gested and  the  students  are  left  to  give  expression  to  the  ideas  as 
they  lie  in  their  own  minds.  This  plan  necessitates  the  using  of 
class  notes,  gathering  of  materials  from  collateral  reading,  and 
organizing  the  whole  topic  for  themselves.  The  topics  given  out 
for  written  organization  frequently  should  not  be  wholly  or 
definitely  covered  in  the  books  or  in  the  discussions,  but  should 
consider  some  new  relationship  growing  out  of  the  materials  at 
hand.  Sometimes  a  topic  may  be  studied  intensively  for  a  time 
and  then  written  up  during  the  class  period.  Such  work  is  the 
best  sort  of  examination,  and  has  the  great  advantage  of  giving 

1  School  Management,  p.  171. 


384  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

opportunity  for  deliberately  organizing  thoughts,  and  the  forma- 
tion of  multiple  associations.  A  necessary  prerequisite  of  all 
memory  of  real  ideas  is  just  this  associative  reflection.1 

Multiple  Associations. — Many  diverse  associations  are  neces- 
sary to  secure  the  best  memory.  The  more  numerous  and  di- 
verse the  associations  connected  with  a  given  fact,  the  more  pos- " 
sibilities  of  its  recall.  Each  experience  becomes  a  "suggesting 
string"  which  may  be  pulled  to  induce  recall.  There  is  great 
danger  that  associations  will  be  too  few,  and  of  the  purely  me- 
chanical type.  The  way  in  which  the  ordinary  text-book  his- 
tory is  studied  illustrates  the  point.  The  number  of  topics  is 
large  because  the  historian  feels  compelled  to  give  a  complete 
account.  This  necessitates  great  brevity  of  topics,  usually  at 
the  expense  of  clearness.  Furthermore,  this  condensed  com- 
pendium frequently  necessitates  giving  as  much  space  to  com- 
paratively unimportant  events  as  to  those  which  are  of  vital 
significance  and  which  should  be  expanded  according  to  their 
importance.  An  actual  count  shows  that  average  school  his- 
tories contain  about  fifteen  hundred  topics,  any  one  of  which 
would  furnish  several  days'  lessons  if  studied  sufficiently  to  be 
clearly  comprehended.  The  entire  fifteen  hundred,  however, 
are  frequently  forced  kaleidoscopically  before  children  in  about 
two  hundred  and  seventy  lessons.  What  wonder  that  the  whole 
subject  is  but  a  confused  blur  in  the  minds  of  the  learners  ?  If  a 
few  leading  topics  were  selected  and  then  studied  deliberately 
from  many  sides  until  thoroughly  comprehended,  the  resulting 
product  would  be  infinitely  more  valuable.  With  the  abun- 
dance of  collateral  material  easily  obtainable,  every  lesson  ought 
to  be  illuminated  by  the  teacher,  and  by  means  of  other  readings, 
until  the  pupils  see  the  actors  face  to  face,  instead  of  through  a 
glass  darkly.  What  boots  it  if  the  entire  book  is  not  covered  ? 
Not  all  history  is  recorded  in  any  one  book,  and  no  single  author 
has  selected  the  only  events  worth  while. 

The  important  thing  is  to  have  the  pupils  know  how  to  study 

1  See  Meumann,   Okonomie  und   Technik  dcs  Gedachtnisses,   Leipsic,    1908; 
also  Kuhlmann,  Am.  Jour,  of  Psych.,  18  :  394. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    385 

the  subject;  to  know  where  to  find  books  and  sources  that  are 
worth  while;  and  to  understand  some  history  so  well  that  it  will 
modify  their  likes  and  dislikes,  and  bias  their  entire  future 
thinking.  Through  this  they  should  develop  a  taste  for  history 
and  a  knowledge  of  its  proper  methods  of  study.  If  they  have 
not  acquired  a  genuine  interest  in  the  narrative  of  history,  the 
work  has  been  largely  unfruitful.  If  a  high-school  pupil  should 
spend  an  hour  a  day  for  three  weeks  reading  on  the  Missouri 
Compromise  or  the  United  States  Bank,  he  would  have  some 
ideas  so  clearly  and  firmly  implanted  that  he  could  talk  intelli- 
gently upon  the  subject,  and  moreover  he  would  never  forget 
the  salient  features.  The  ideas  gained  would  be  so  many-sided 
and  the  associations  so  diverse  and  multiple  that  they  could  not 
easily  be  forgotten.  How  different  is  much  of  the  study  of 
history! 

In  studying  geography  it  is  not  necessary  that  every  fact  chron- 
icled in  a  text-book  should  be  taken.  The  text  is  usually  a  com- 
pendium for  reference.  There  is  no  reason  why  a  pupil  should 
take  all  of  the  topics,  and  in  precisely  the  same  order  as  given 
in  the  book.  Suppose  the  order  is  varied  and  some  topics  are 
even  omitted  ?  If  the  topics  taken  are  rendered  interesting  and 
clear  and  full,  the  method  of  geographical  study  will  have  been 
impressed  and  the  facts  learned  will  be  usable.  In  order  to  ac- 
complish these  fundamental  ends,  only  a  few  things  can  be 
studied,  and  these  must  be  taken  so  exhaustively  that  no  doubt 
exists  as  to  whether  the  resulting  knowledge  consists  of  words 
alone  or  of  clear,  well-defined  concepts  gained  through  concrete 
individual  notions.  Usually  the  book  contains  only  the  merest 
statement  of  the  concept.  All  concrete  details,  which  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  prerequisites  to  conceptual  ideas,  are  lacking. 
Hence  the  child  begins  with  the  generalization  which  should  be 
the  end.  The  elementary  text-book  is  a  good  summary,  but 
not  an  exhaustive  treatment  of  any  of  the  topics  discussed. 
Much  of  the  material  for  the  adequate  treatment  must  be  sup- 
plied from  other  sources — by  the  teacher  and  collateral  books. 

We  marvel  at  the  politician  and  the  scholar  who  seem  to  have 


386  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

an  inexhaustible  fund  of  illustrations  and  arguments  bubbling 
over  for  expression.  We  say,  "What  wonderful  memories!" 
But  outside  of  their  specialties  their  memories  would  probably 
be  found  as  unresourceful  as  other  people's.  The  secret  of  their 
fund  of  ready  recall  is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  long  study  and 
reflection  upon  the  same  thing.  Whoever  has  the  perseverance 
and  gives  long-continued  attention  to  any  line  of  investigation 
can  acquire  a  fund  of  ready  knowledge  sufficient  to  enable  him 
to  talk  continuously  upon  that  line. 

Teachers  are  frequently  disappointed  in  examinations  be- 
cause pupils  seem  to  have  forgotten  so  much  that  they  had  sup- 
posedly been  taught.  The  wonder  is,  however,  not  that  pupils 
have  forgotten  as  much,  but  that  they  remember  as  much  as  they 
do.  The  main  reason  why  they  do  not  remember  more  is  that 
they  have  not  really  learned  anything  that  they  were  asked  to 
recall.  They  may  have  read  the  words  of  the  lessons  assigned 
and  the  teacher  may  have  explained,  but  unless  the  lessons  have 
become  more  than  words,  retention  of  ideas  cannot  follow. 

Recognition  of  Varieties  of  Memory  Functions.— The  fact  that 
different  individuals  have  different  types  of  memory  suggests 
the  desirability  of  recognizing  these  individual  characteristics  in 
memory  training.  These  should  be  considered  in  two  ways. 
First,  the  one  with  a  special  gift  in  any  direction  should  know 
how  to  utilize  it;  and  second,  the  one  who  is  specially  defective 
in  any  direction  should  be  helped  to  remedy  the  defect,  if  pos- 
sible. Use  as  many  senses  as  possible  in  acquiring  ideas.  \Ve 
should  remember  that  knowledge  is  very  complex,  and  that  a 
variety  of  experiences  enter  into  the  real  and  complete  knowl- 
edge of  every  concept  we  possess.  For  example,  the  complete 
knowledge  of  that  classical  fruit,  the  orange,  includes  taste  ideas, 
those  of  smell,  touch,  weight,  color,  etc.  In  the  case  of  this 
particular  fruit,  most  of  us  have  received  the  actual  primary 
experiences.  But  in  how  many  cases  we  are  satisfied  with  getting 
only  a  single  set  of  sensations,  and  then  expect  that  all  the  other 
factors  will  be  represented  through  the  fiat  currency  of  words 
that  we  employ!  The  druggist  who  did  not  employ  several 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    387 

senses  in  acquiring  his  knowledge  of  drugs  would  be  a  danger- 
ous person  to  compound  medicines  for  us.  The  successful  one 
relies,  not  on  sight  alone,  but  upon  the  touch,  the  odor,  the  con- 
sistency, the  weight,  sound,  etc.  Chemistry  used  to  be  taught 
from  a  book  by  learning  names,  symbols,  and  formulas,  without 
ever  seeing  a  compound.  By  such  teaching  a  pupil  could  not 
tell  sulphuric  acid  from  kerosene,  or  quartz  from  meerschaum. 

Spelling  is  a  process  in  which  sight,  hearing,  the  muscular 
movements  of  the  arm  and  the  fingers,  muscular  movements  of 
the  vocal  cords,  the  tactile  sensation  in  the  hand,  joints,  and 
vocal  cords,  all  may  and  should  enter.  Unfortunately,  un- 
psychological  faddists  successively  accentuate  some  one  or  other 
of  these  factors  to  the  neglect  of  all  the  others.  Each  faddist  is 
partly  in  the  right,  but  all  are  in  the  wrong.  Ideal  results  can 
not  be  secured  in  this  useful  art  until  the  ear  is  trained  to  hear 
the  syllables  and  other  component  elements,  to  hear  the  exact 
pronunciation  as  a  whole,  and  the  succession  of  sounds  in  utter- 
ing the  letters  and  syllables;  until  the  eye  is  trained  to  see  the 
word  as  a  whole,  and  in  its  various  analyses;  until  the  muscles 
of  the  vocal  apparatus  are  habituated  to  the  utterance  of  the 
various  combinations;  until  the  hand  and  arm  have  formed 
definite  and  ready  associations  of  movements;  and  finally  not 
until  there  is  a  perfect  harmony  and  co-ordination  among  all  the 
various  processes.  Then  only  can  the  spelling  of  any  combi- 
nation be  said  to  be  properly  mastered. 

Note  should  also  be  made  of  the  fact  that  impressions  are  not 
received  through  a  given  sense  equally  well  at  all  times.  For 
example,  the  ear  is  used  to  interpret  language  symbols  several 
years  before  the  eye.  In  racial  development  the  ear  was  for 
ages  the  only  interpreter  of  language  symbols.  This  should  be 
recognized  in  teaching.  Early  education  should  be  almost 
wholly  oral.  The  child's  language  expression  should  be  vocal; 
instead,  he  is  often  plunged  into  reading  as  a  means  of  learning, 
and  the  hand  is  set  to  pen-wagging  as  a  means  of  expression. 
Halleck1  tells  us  of  a  class  that  had  struggled  hard  and  long  to 

1  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,  pp.  48-54. 


388  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

interpret  visually  "  As  You  Like  It."  But  they  failed  utterly  to 
grasp  it.  It  was  finally  read  to  them  and  the  change  was  mar- 
vellous. No  greater  pedagogical  heresy  is  perpetuated  at  the 
present  time  than  the  atrocious  method  of  instructing  little 
children  in  singing  by  note.  Instead  of  giving  them  an  op- 
portunity to  hear  sweet  melodies  and  then  encouraging  them, 
through  imitation,  to  burst  forth  into  songs  of  praise  and  glad- 
ness, they  are  required  to  read  a  strange,  meaningless,  Chinese 
puzzle.  The  little  singing  they  learn,  which  is  indeed  a  diminu- 
tive quantity,  is  really  gained  through  imitation  of  what  they 
hear. 

Interest  and  Memory. — Joseph  Cook  is  said  to  have  written  in 
effect:  "Interest  is  the  mother  of  attention,  and  attention  the 
mother  of  memory;  if  you  would  secure  memory  you  must  first 
catch  the  mother  and  the  grandmother."  The  boy  who  has  no 
interest  in  what  he  does,  but  goes  through  his  tasks  in  a  purely 
perfunctory  way,  does  not  acquire  much,  and  retains  that  little 
poorly.  The  boy  who  blunders  in  his  arithmetic,  forgets  how 
to  spell,  and  seems  to  be  unable  to  remember  his  geography  may 
be,  and  often  is,  one  who  can  remember  every  detail  of  all  the 
season's  foot-ball  games.  He  can  name  every  player  who  took 
part  in  each,  remember  all  the  "star  plays,"  the  fouls,  the  bad 
decisions  of  the  umpire,  the  different  formations  that  were  tried ; 
in  fact,  like  the  politician,  his  fund  of  knowledge  of  certain  sorts 
seems  inexhaustible. 

I  once  had  a  boy  in  school  who  was  called  a  dunce  by  many 
of  his  teachers,  but  who  knew  more  about  birds  than  all  his 
teachers  combined.  Strangely  enough,  too,  most  of  his  teachers 
had  never  discovered  this  interest.  A  little  judicious  considera- 
tion of  this  boy's  interests  which  he  brought  with  him  furnished 
a  key  which  unlocked  other  interests.  He  did  splendid  work  in 
nature  study,  his  arithmetic  work  became  the  strongest  in  his 
class,  and,  in  fact,  his  work  in  all  lines  was  second  to  no  other's. 
The  only  thing  he  had  needed  was  an  enlistment  of  his  interest. 
By  interesting  myself  in  things  that  appealed  to  him,  I  was  able 
to  direct  his  attention  to  other  things  which  I  thought  he  should 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    389 

know.  The  child  who  is  kept  after  school  to  do  work  as  a  pen- 
alty, remembers  well  enough  his  emotions  on  the  occasion,  but 
forgets  speedily  the  lesson  imposed.  The  mind  must  be  in  the 
right  attitude,  and  be  a  willing  party  to  the  operation.  The 
mind  that  is  not  aglow  with  enthusiasm  for  the  task  in  hand  con- 
tinually wanders  away  to  more  alluring  fields,  attention  is  scat- 
tered, and  mental  acquisitions  are  vague,  confused,  and  fleeting. 
Irksomeness  and  superficiality  of  acquisition  are  natural  ac- 
companiments. 

Clearness  of  Ideas. — To  record  ideas  so  that  they  may  be  per- 
manent, and  also  that  they  may  be  recalled  readily,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  apprehend  them  clearly.  The  majority  of  ideas  which 
come  to  our  minds  are  so  vague  and  poorly  defined  that  they 
make  little  impression  and  are  soon  lost.  It  is  a  common  fault 
of  teachers  to  lack  lucidity  in  explanation,  and  text-books  are 
generally  very  abstract.  Limited  space,  to  a  certain  degree, 
necessitates  this  abstractness  of  text-books,  but  it  is  the  teacher's 
business  to  be  concrete  and  clear  himself,  and  to  render  con- 
densed abstractions  of  the  text-book  clear  and  comprehensive, 
when  necessary,  by  copious  illustrations.  In  the  lower  grades 
most  text-books  should  serve  as  summaries  of  material  secured 
from  real  presentation  by  the  teacher  and  from  concrete  collat- 
eral material  gathered  from  necessary  books,  experiments,  and 
excursions. 

Comprehension  vs.  Apprehension. — The  foregoing  considera- 
tions of  memory  should  teach  us  much  with  reference  to  modes  of 
attempting  to  secure  lasting  impressions  of  various  school-room 
lessons.  According  to  the  character  of  the  material,  some 
should  be  memorized  mechanically,  while  in  other  lessons  no 
attempt  should  be  made  to  secure  automatic  reproduction  of 
fixed  forms.  In  lessons  where  the  content  is  to  be  memorized, 
the  efforts  of  the  learner  should  be  centred  upon  mastering  the 
ideas  contained.  The  attempt  should  be  to  understand,  to 
know,  and  to  let  memory  take  care  of  itself.  That  which  is  ap- 
prehended in  perception,  comprehended  through  apperception, 
and  woven  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  mind  through  manifold 


390  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

associations  will  be  retained  without  recourse  to  artificial 
memories.  McLellan  says:  "Do  not  aim  at  training  memory 
directly,  but  indirectly,  through  the  training  of  the  apperceiving 
powers.  The  attitude  of  the  pupil's  mind  should  be:  I  must 
perceive  this  just  as  it  is  and  in  all  its  bearings;  not,  I  must  re- 
member this.  If  the  original  perception,  in  other  words,  is  what  it 
should  be,  accurate,  comprehensive  and  independent,  memory 
may  be  left  very  largely  to  take  care  of  itself.  For  the  first  step 
in  remembering  anything  is  to  get  it  within  the  mind,  and  ap- 
perception is  just  this  getting  it  within  the  mind."  1 

A  careful  consideration  of  the  lessons  to  be  taught,  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  just  what  is  to  be  acquired,  and  how  it  is 
to  be  acquired,  is  of  prime  moment  in  the  teacher's  daily  plans. 
Whether  a  given  page  is  merely  a  scaffolding  which  should  form 
a  setting  to  the  real  structure,  or  whether  it  is  a  part  of  the  struct- 
ure itself,  should  be  clearly  distinguished.  Oftentimes  many 
paragraphs  must  be  included  merely  for  the  sake  of  a  proper 
background  of  the  picture  wrhich  is  to  be  discovered.  They 
are  necessary  to  a  complete  understanding,  but  there  is  no  neces- 
sity for  centring  the  attention  upon  them.  But  the  salient  facts, 
principles,  and  laws  should  be  focalized,  crossed  and  recrossed, 
viewed  telescopically,  microscopically,  with  the  physical  eye,  and 
through  the  eye  of  imagination.  Finally,  through  the  high- 
est processes  of  abstraction  and  symbolization,  the  concepts 
should  be  comprehended  in  all  their  fulness  without  recourse  to 
the  elementary  means  necessary  to  the  first  fundamental  ideas.2 

Modes  of  Recall. — The  function  of  recall  in  the  learning  proc- 
ess is  of  great  pedagogical  interest.  The  recitation  has  for  one 
function  the  recall  of  ideas  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  them  in 
memory  more  firmly.  Under  what  conditions  should  recall 
take  place  so  as  to  make  learning  the  most  sure  and  economical  ? 
Ebbinghaus3  studied  the  matter  experimentally,  in  connection 


1  McLellan  and  Dewey,  Applied  Psychology,  p.  95. 

2  For  some  good  suggestions  on  this  and  related  topics,  see  Dorpfeld,  The 
Connection  Between  Thought  and  Memory,  tr.  by  Lukens. 

3  Ueber  das  Gedachtnis.  Leipsic,  1885. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    391 

with  learning  nonsense  syllables.  He  found  that  if  the  list  con- 
tained seven  syllables  one  reading  would  suffice,  when  the  list 
contained  twelve  syllables  it  took  sixteen  repetitions.  Sixteen 
syllables  required  thirty  repetitions.  This  suggests  the  de- 
sirability of  short  lessons,  especially  with  children.  After  a 
lapse  of  twenty  minutes  he  found  that  fifty-eight  per  cent,  as 
much  work  was  required  to  recommit  as  to  commit  a  new  list. 
After  an  hour  the  further  loss  by  forgetting  was  small.  Colvin1 
says,  however,  that  in  the  case  of  thought  processes,  as  opposed 
to  forms  of  expression,  when  once  the  idea  is  learned,  recall 
twenty-four  hours  after  learning  is  as  accurate  as  immediate 
recall.  This  suggests  the  importance  of  frequent  drills  upon 
things  that  are  to  be  learned  verbatim,  but  the  lack  of  such  ne- 
cessity when  dealing  with  ideas.  For  example,  the  spelling 
lessson  and  elementary  foreign  languages  require  frequent  op- 
portunity for  repetition,  while  the  history  and  nature-study  les- 
sons should  be  dealt  with  as  ideas  and  will  not  require  much  or 
frequent  repetition  in  learning.  The  Germans  recognize  these 
principles  in  a  practical  way  in  the  organization  of  their  school 
curricula.  Latin  and  other  foreign  languages  are  given  every 
day,  and  sometimes  twice  a  day  in  the  initial  stages,  while  history, 
geography,  and  nature  study  are  given  about  twice  a  week.  The 
question  of  review  through  association  and  apperception  as  dis- 
tinguished from  repetitions  is  more  advantageously  treated  in 
connection  with  the  subjects  of  apperception  and  of  thinking. 

Kind  of  Memory  to  Employ  in  a  Given  Case. — It  is  also  im- 
portant to  know  whether  the  form  of  expression  in  a  given 
lesson  should  be  learned  exactly.  There  are  some  things  that 
should  be  learned  verbatim.  In  these  the  form  as  well  as  the 
content  is  important;  in  fact,  in  some  cases,  without  the  exact 
form  the  content  would  be  largely  valueless.  Among  the  things 
which  should  be  firmly  fixed  in  the  mechanical  memory  are  the 
following:  The  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication,  and  di- 
vision tables;  certain  tables  in  denominate  numbers;  a  rich  vo- 
cabulary of  words  in  the  mother  tongue;  vocabularies  in  foreign 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  124. 


392  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

languages;  the  spelling  of  all  of  one's  usable  words  in  the  ver- 
nacular; some  mathematical  formulas  that  are  constantly  ap- 
plied in  higher  mathematics;  paradigms  in  ancient  languages 
or  other  foreign  languages,  read  only;  many  gems  of  literature; 
occasional  definitions;  principles,  laws,  etc. 

Except  in  the  case  of  spelling,  tables  of  the  fundamental  opera- 
tions in  arithmetic,  and  certain  parts  of  vocabulary-learning,  the 
processes  need  not  be  devoid  of  thoughtful  associations.  The 
multiplication  table  and  much  English  spelling  are,  however,  as 
mechanical  and  content-less  as  "  ickery-irey,  ooery-ann" — and 
must  be  learned  by  point-blank  mechanical  associations.  In 
such  cases  repetition  is  about  the  only  way  to  establish  the  me- 
chanical bonds  of  association.  In  other  cases  admitting  of 
analysis  and  thoughtful  consideration,  the  content  should  be 
thoroughly  mastered  before  attempting  to  impress  the  form 
of  expression  on  the  mind.  This  should  be  the  invariable  rule, 
for  children  easily  focus  upon  learning  the  expression  before 
comprehending  its  significance.  The  meaning  of  all  general- 
izations to  be  memorized  should  be  taught  indirectly,  thus  com- 
ing to  the  concentrated  statement  last.  Joshua  Fitch  expressed 
the  matter  in  a  paragraph  almost  worthy  of  being  memorized 
verbatim  by  every  teacher.  He  wrote:  "  When  the  object  is  to 
have  thoughts,  facts,  reasonings  reproduced,  seek  to  have  them 
reproduced  in  the  pupils'  own  words.  Do  not  set  the  faculty 
of  mere  verbal  memory  to  work.  But  when  the  words  them- 
selves in  which  a  fact  is  embodied  have  some  special  fitness  or 
beauty  of  their  own,  when  they  represent  some  scientific  datum 
or  central  truth,  which  could  not  otherwise  be  so  well  expressed, 
then  see  that  the  form  as  well  as  the  expression  is  learned  by 
heart."1 

Permanence  of  Effects. — Whatever  has  once  been  memorized 
and  then  apparently  forgotten,  can  be  recommitted  more  quickly 


1  For  some  suggestions  concerning  the  efficiency  of  various  modes  of  learning, 
see  Colvin  and  Myers,  "Development  of  Imagination  in  School  Children  and  the 
Relation  between  Ideational  Types  and  the  Retentivity  of  Material  Appealing 
to  Various  Sense  Departments,"  Psych.  Rev.,  Monograph  Sup.,  Nov.,  1909. 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    393 

a  second  time  than  the  first.  Many  experiments  have  con- 
firmed this  view.  The  most  notable  experiments  were  those  very 
patiently  and  heroically  performed  by  Ebbinghaus.  The  dis- 
cussions concerning  the  permanent  effects  of  experience  ought 
to  be  of  practical  pedagogical  value.  Whatever  we  have  ex- 
perienced affects  us  forever  for  better  or  for  worse.  The  one 
who  has  lived  a  life  of  righteousness  has  built  up  a  fund  of  ac- 
quisitions which  will  influence  or  bias  his  every  action  and 
thought.  The  one  who  has  sown  to  the  winds  must  reap  the 
whirlwind.  Patient,  painstaking  teachers  who  have  carefully 
indoctrinated  their  pupils  day  by  day  with  noble  ideals  should 
not  be  weary  in  well-doing,  though  their  work  often  appears 
unappreciated  or  even  lost.  If  the  instruction  has  really  made 
an  impression,  its  influence  can  never  be  effaced,  though  appar- 
ently lost  in  the  complex  of  other  experiences.  Even  in  purely 
intellectual  lessons  the  teacher  should  take  heart.  Though 
the  pupil  may  disappoint  on  examination  day  by  the  appar- 
ent effacement  of  lessons  patiently  drilled  into  his  mind,  the 
lessons  will  show  somewhere  at  some  time. 

McLellan1  wrote  of  the  permanent  effects  of  experience: 
"Moreover,  from  the  known  connection  of  mind  with  brain, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  such  experiences  are  accompanied  by 
some  modification  in  groups  of  brain  cells,  and  that  their  growth 
into  special  organs  of  apperception  is  attended  with  nervous 
growths  which  actually  modify  the  structure  of  the  brain.  It  is 
not  so  strange,  therefore,  that  habit  becomes  a  second  nature  so 
strong  and  active  as  to  be  mistaken  for  the  first.  This  power, 
bent,  facility  to  act — right  or  wrong,  good  or  evil — in  a  definite 
direction,  has  entered  into  the  structure  of  both  body  and  mind, 
and  will  give  coloring  to  all  future  thoughts  and  actions,  just  as 
the  food-elements  absorbed  by  the  tree  become  a  part  of  its  liv- 
ing tissue  and  affect  the  assimilation  of  all  material  afterward 
absorbed.  Now,  the  teacher  is  not  wholly  responsible  for  such 
development  of  faculty — the  powerful  influence  of  environment 
must  be  taken  into  account — but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that, 

1  Applied  Psychology,  p.  71. 


394  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

under  conceivably  favorable  circumstances,  he  is,  in  no  small 
degree,  responsible.  He  can  make  the  child  love  what  he  him- 
self loves,  and  hate  what  he  hates.  It  is  difficult  to  overrate  the 
far-reaching  influences  of  a  teacher  of  strong  personality.  Under 
the  teachings  of  such  a  man,  the  child  once  thinks  certain 
thoughts  and  is  stirred  with  certain  emotions;  from  that  mo- 
ment he  will  never  again  be  exactly  what  he  was  before;  it  is, 
indeed,  possible  that  he  will  have  acquired  a  bent  which  will  de- 
termine his  character  forever." 

Mnemonics  are  artificial  helps  used  for  the  purpose  of  assist- 
ing the  memory.  They  usually  consist  of  rules  and  devices 
for  producing  purely  mechanical  associations.  The  following 
illustrations  are  very  familiar:  "Thirty  days  hath  September," 
etc.  ;"VIBGYOR";"  Though  the  rough  cough  and  hiccough 
plough  me  through,"  etc.  In  ancient  times  great  stress  was 
placed  upon  mnemonics  or  Memoria  Technica.  Greek  and  Ro- 
man teachers  of  oratory  made  much  use  of  visual  pictures  in  at- 
tempting to  fix  the  sequence  of  topics  in  mind.  They  artifi- 
cially associated  the  several  parts  of  the  discourse  with  the  sev- 
eral parts  of  a  house.  In  more  recent  times  we  have  heard 
of  numerous  "systems  of  memory,"  which  the  authors  guaran- 
tee will  enable  one  to  remember  a  book  at  one  reading,  abso- 
lutely stop  forgetting,  lead  one  to  the  heights  of  success,  etc.,  etc. 
As  means  of  memorizing  ideas  they  are  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
Only  single,  mechanical  associations  are  formed,  and  these  with 
words,  sounds,  or  some  sort  of  symbols,  and  not  between  ideas. 
If  revival  is  desired,  there  is  only  one  factor  capable  of  producing 
it.  In  the  rational  memory  there  are  multiple  associations  and 
any  one  of  a  large  number  of  elements  is  sufficient  to  produce 
recall.  In  most  mnemonic  series  only  the  symbols  or  words 
are  remembered,  because  the  ideas  which  they  represent  have 
never  been  learned.  In  the  familiar  "Thirty  days  hath  Sep- 
tember," the  chances  are  that  the  child  learned  the  lingo  and  not 
what  it  was  supposed  to  help  him  to  remember.  Even  if  he  did 
learn  that  it  was  to  help  him  in  fixing  the  number  of  days  in  each 
month,  the  only  means  of  recall  is  by  unravelling  the  entire 


THE  WISE  USE  AND  TRAINING  OF  MEMORY    395 

skein  of  mechanical  elements.  Ask  him  suddenly  to  tell  the 
number  of  days  in  August  and  he  must  begin  with  "Thirty 
days  hath  September"  and  go  to  "All  the  rest  have  thirty- 
one,"  etc. 

Every  system  of  mnemonics  deals  with  devices  for  learning 
things  that  are  not  worth  learning.  Instead  of  suggesting  means 
of  stimulating  intelligence,  they  propose  tricks  for  stultifying  it. 
Stokes1  unwittingly  discloses  the  perniciousness  of  all  such 
schemes  when  he  says:  "It  is  imperative  that  a  Mnemonical 
Key  should  be  thoroughly  mastered — mark  the  term  'Mastered' 
— I  do  not  say  'understood,'  but  'Mastered."  He  maintains 
that  a  pupil  "should  have  a  passive  mind  and  not  audibly  or 
mentally  ask  fifty  questions  'as  to  the  why  and  the  wherefore' 
of  what  he  is  required  to  do."  If  the  whole  business  of  educa- 
tion were  to  commit  words  and  mechanical  forms  to  memory  that 
they  might  be  rattled  off  parrot  fashion,  there  would  be  some 
value  in  some  of  the  devices.  It  is  questionable,  however, 
whether  a  rational  understanding  would  not  be  a  quicker,  and 
certainly  a  surer,  method. 

Simple  devices  that  one  works  out,  or  rather  hits  upon  in 
studying  analytically,  are  sometimes  valuable,  but  only  because 
they  represent  relations  which  we  have  established  for  ourselves. 
Mnemonic  devices,  necessitating  as  they  do  purely  mechanical, 
single  connections,  are  unreliable  and  generally  useless.  They 
disregard  the  fact  that  thought  relations  are  the  most  vital, 
multiple,  and  tenacious.  If  any  mnemonic  devices  are  of  any 
value  it  is  not  because  of  the  virtue  inherent  in  the  device  or 
system.  The  concentration  of  attention  upon  the  material  to 
be  mastered,  and  the  working  out  of  relations  among  the  differ- 
ent elements,  are  what  cause  the  retention.  However,  if  one 
follows  some  one  else's  mnemonics  it  generally  requires  more 
time  to  learn  the  devices  than  it  would  take  to  learn  the  thing 
itself.  Besides,  if  the  borrowed  mnemonics  are  followed  the 
means  employed  in  securing  the  mnemonics  are  purely  me- 
chanical and  generally  not  worth  retaining. 

1  On  Memory,  Ninetieth  edition,  London,  1866,  p.  61. 


396  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Arrangement  of  the  Curriculum. — In  order  to  make  memories 
permanent  and  serviceable,  ideas  should  be  considered  for  long 
periods  of  time.  That  which  is  perceived  but  once  is  speedily 
forgotten,  because  obliterated  by  subsequent  associations.  But 
if  the  idea  recurs  at  intervals — not  too  long — permanent  associ- 
ations are  established.  In  the  arrangement  of  our  curricula  in 
America  we  have  largely  disregarded  these  fundamental  laws. 
Most  studies  are  taken  for  comparatively  brief  periods  and  then 
give  way  to  others,  which  in  turn  are  glimpsed  panoramically. 
In  most  European  countries,  Germany  especially,  the  studies 
are  so  arranged  that  they  are  kept  before  the  mind  for  long 
periods  of  time.  This  idea  will  be  developed  more  fully  in  later 
chapters.  The  importance  of  sense  perceptions  and  the  means 
of  securing  them;  the  arrangement  of  subject-matter  so  as  to 
accord  with  the  laws  of  apperception;  the  relation  of  motor 
activities  in  the  learning  processes;  the  importance  of  vivid  and 
accurate  imagination;  and  the  organization  of  elemental  acqui- 
sitions into  the  highest  thought-products,  all  have  a  definite 
bearing  upon  memory  processes  and  their  training.  Their  im- 
portance is  so  great  that  consideration  will  be  given  to  those 
phases  in  separate  chapters. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO   EDUCATION 

General  Illustrations. — All  are  familiar  with  the  term  "imita- 
tion" as  employed  by  the  popular  mind.  When  one  person  per- 
forms some  action  because  he  has  observed  the  same  action  in 
others,  he  is  said  to  imitate.  A  child  observes  his  father  whistling. 
The  child  puckers  up  his  lips  and  tries  to  do  just  as  his  father 
did.  A  new  girl  comes  to  school.  She  seems  to  be  a  leader  and 
forthwith,  as  if  by  contagion,  the  whole  school  begin  to  ape  her 
walk,  her  speech,  her  dress,  her  peculiar  pronunciations,  her 
fashion  of  dressing  the  hair,  in  fact  all  her  actions  are  simulated 
as  nearly  as  possible.  Both  of  these  are  well-recognized  cases 
of  imitation. 

Language  has  an  instinctive  basis,  but  its  particular  form  is 
wholly  due  to  imitation.  That  we  speak  and  gesture  rather 
than  howl,  bark,  or  neigh,  is  a  matter  of  instinct;  that  we  speak 
English,  French,  or  German,  rather  than  Russian,  Armenian,  or 
Choctaw,  is  due  to  imitation.  The  English  boy  drops  his  h's 
where  we  should  put  them  on,  or  tacks  them  on  where  we  should 
suppress  them,  simply  because  he  lives  with  others  who  do  so. 
The  New  Englander  says  nevah,  rivah,  and  Jarvar;  the  English- 
man says  clog,  while  a  western  American  says  dawg;  the  English- 
man calls  a  young  bovine  a  calf,  while  the  ranchman  maintains 
that  it  is  a  calf.  In  one  region  of  the  United  States  every  one 
says  bucket;  in  another,  pail.  I  carry  a  pocket-book,  the  New 
Englander  a  wallet.  The  city  man  goes  to  church,  his  country 
cousin  goes  to  meeting.  I  attended  Sabbath-school  when  a  boy, 
my  children  go  to  Sunday-school.  Whether  one  whistles  a  tune, 
a  tyune,  or  a  tschune,  all  depends  upon  who  his  neighbors  are. 
Slang  phrases,  catchy  expressions,  or  popular  songs  are  caught 

397 


398  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

up  by  the  special  circle  to  which  they  appeal;  they  are  dinned 
into  everybody's  ears,  and  finally  resound  from  the  lips  of  all 
who  have  been  made  listeners,  willing  or  unwilling.  How  many 
of  us  have  felt  chagrined  on  catching  ourselves  humming  some 
meaningless  nickeldom  melody,  or  using  the  latest  slang  ex- 
pressions ?  Just  now  we  hear  on  every  hand  such  phrases  as  "  up 
to  you,"  "up  against  it,"  "in  the  swim,"  "get  busy,"  etc. 
Street  urchins,  loafers,  business  men,  lawyers,  doctors,  and 
even  preachers  and  teachers  find  these  emphatic  terms  coming 
automatically  to  their  tongues.  College  students  in  special 
sections  and  at  different  times  have  their  own  peculiar  epithets 
and  expressions.  In  one  university,  to  study  is  to  "dig,"  in 
another  to  "bone,"  in  another  to  "buck,"  in  another  to  "plug," 
in  another  to  "  plow."  To  recite  poorly  in  one  place  is  to  "  flunk," 
in  another  to  "fall  through";  to  fail  is  to  be  "plucked."  A 
good  recitation  sometimes  "knocks  the  professor's  eyes  out," 
at  others  it  "corks  him,"  at  others  merely  "squelches"  or 
"strikes"  him.  In  one  university,  to  fail  in  examinations  is  to 
"bust!" 

Manners  and  customs  are  products  of  imitation.  Thousands 
of  our  every-day  matters  of  etiquette  no  longer  have  any  reason 
back  of  their  performance.  Though  they  may  have  originated  in 
some  rational  way  that  has  long  since  disappeared,  they  are 
now  perpetuated  solely  through  imitation.  For  example,  the 
people  of  many  nations  shake  one  another's  hands  on  meeting; 
but  those  from  some  countries  shake  their  own  hands.  Ameri- 
cans and  Englishmen  say,  "How  do  you  do?"  the  German, 
"How  goes  it?"  American  men  lift  their  hats  to  a  lady;  the 
German  is  more  apt  to  do  so  on  meeting  a  man.  With  Cau- 
casians, black  is  an  emblem  of  mourning;  among  Chinese, 
white  performs  the  same  service. 

Fashions  in  dress  are  created  and  perpetuated  through  imita- 
tion. Were  it  not  so,  scores  of  hideous,  unbecoming,  unhygienic 
fashions  could  never  have  been  launched.  Desirable  fashions 
are  maintained  in  the  same  manner.  There  must  be  leaders 
who  will  be  aped  in  all  they  do,  to  set  the  ball  rolling.  Their 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    399 

devotees  pay  homage  by  immediate  adoption.  Metropolitan 
milliners,  dressmakers,  and  tailors  know  that  to  insure  changes 
of  fashion  all  they  need  do  is  to  induce  some  leader  to  appear 
in  a  new  style,  and  the  fashion  is  launched.  This  is  a  usual 
method  of  stimulating  trade.  Psychical  laws  are  the  most 
potent  factors  in  economics.  A  history  of  furniture  reveals 
characteristic  styles  prevailing  often  for  centuries.  But  within 
the  memory  of  every  adult  the  styles  in  furniture  have  changed 
at  least  three  distinct  times.  In  dress,  at  least  half  a  dozen  spe- 
cial epochs  may  be  traced  through  the  last  quarter-century, 
besides  a  semi-annual  upheaval  in  minor  matters.  One  should 
enjoy  his  Flemish  oak  and  his  Mission  patterns  as  fully  as  pos- 
sible to-day,  for  to-morrow  they  will  be  sought  out  by  relic 
hunters.  The  sixteenth-century  style  was  reopened  to  the  sun- 
light for  a  day  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  shut 
away  for  another  cycle  to  proclaim  it  the  only  style  worth 
possessing. 

Imitation  Among  Animals. — Cases  of  imitation  among  ani- 
mals can  also  be  recalled  by  all.  The  canary  and  the  mocking- 
bird learn  to  sing  from  hearing  others  of  their  species;  pointers 
and  setters  learn  their  peculiar  feats  largely  from  imitation. 
Monkeys  make  themselves  appear  at  once  intelligent  and  ludi- 
crous through  their  powers  of  mimicry.  Of  course,  many  imi- 
tative acts  are  more  easily  learned  than  others,  because  they  are 
also  instinctive.  Birds  would  learn  to  sing  without  hearing 
others  of  their  species,  but  the  kind  of  song  depends  upon  what 
they  hear  for  copy. 

Non- Voluntary  Imitation. — Imitation  has  usually  been  con- 
sidered to  be  a  voluntary  act;  i.  e.,  a  conscious  and  purposive 
attempt  to  perform  an  act  observed  in  another.  Preyer,  for 
example,  maintains  that  the  child  is  several  months  old  before 
it  really  imitates.  The  majority  of  other  writers  have  main- 
tained similar  views.  But  with  this  interpretation,  where  are  we 
to  place  that  large  range  of  activities  which  play  such  an  impor- 
tant role  in  what  we  call  unconscious  tuition?  Unpurposively, 
subconsciously,  I  find  myself  doing  as  my  associates  do.  I  take 


400  PRINCIPLES  OF   EDUCATION 

on  tricks  of  speech,  certain  words  and  phrases  and  intonations; 
I  find  myself  doing  a  thousand  things  my  associates  do;  not  be- 
cause I  intended  to,  but  because  the  acts  do  themselves.  The 
habits  have  me,  rather  than  I  the  habits.  We  are  all  plagiarists 
without  being  thieves  or  criminals.  Civilization  is  something 
each  one  borrows  from  his  surroundings  without  ever  returning 
it  exactly  to  the  owner.  Now,  why  are  we  such  unintentional 
copyists?  An  examination  into  the  fundamental  nature  of 
imitation  will  undoubtedly  render  the  matter  clear. 

Fundamental  Meaning.  Ideo-Motor  Action. — An  examina- 
tion of  certain  psycho-physical  relations  will  reveal  that  imita- 
tion is  by  no  means  confined  to  voluntary  mental  processes,  but 
that  it  is  one  of  the  most  fundamental  phenomena  of  life. 
Recent  researches  have  demonstrated  that  all  thought  is  motor; 
that  is,  with  the  prevalence  of  any  idea  in  the  mind  there  is  a 
tendency  toward  the  motor  representation  of  the  elements  com- 
posing that  idea  or  of  the  symbols  representing  the  idea.  Sup- 
pose you  are  asked  to  think  intently  of  a  circle  three  feet  in  di- 
ameter on  the  ceiling.  Those  who  think  the  hardest  will  raise 
the  eyes  slightly,  and  perhaps  follow  the  contour  of  the  circle 
with  an  unconscious  rotary  movement  of  the  eyes.  Suppose 
you  open  your  mouth  and  think  the  word  "bubble,"  "bottle," 
or  any  other  word  similar  in  method  of  pronunciation.  The 
most  noticeable  phenomenon  observed  will  be  a  distinct  effort 
to  allow  the  vocal  organs  to  move  in  the  accustomed  way.  So 
strong  is  this  tendency  that  so-called  mind-readers  make  use  of 
it  in  deceiving  the  public.  A  person  is  asked  to  think  hard  of  a 
word.  Sound-reflectors  are  so  arranged  as  to  catch  and  magnify 
the  sounds  unconsciously  produced  through  muscular  vibra- 
tions. These  are  read  by  the  shrewd  impostor.  Again,  mind- 
reading,  as  evidenced  by  finding  hidden  articles,  is  simply 
muscle-reading.  Table-turning,  the  planchette,  the  divining 
rod,  and  doubtless  modern  spiritism,  can  all  be  explained 
similarly. 

Suppose  you  awaken  some  cold  morning  and  say  to  yourself, 
"I  must  get  up,"  but  try  to  banish  the  thought  and  attempt  to 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION     401 

take  another  nap.  You  continually  find  yourself  thinking,  "I 
must  get  up,"  "I  must  get  up";  but  you  finally,  apparently, 
banish  the  thought.  All  at  once,  when  enjoying  a  cat-nap  or  a 
day-dream,  without  thinking,  up  you  get.  The  thought  has 
worked  itself  out  into  action.  Any  one  can  easily  walk  a  two- 
inch  board  on  the  floor.  But  suppose  the  board  is  placed  a 
hundred  feet  above  the  floor.  No  one  but  an  acrobat  or  a 
trained  gymnast  could  accomplish  the  feat  without  falling. 
Why  the  difference?  In  the  latter  case  the  thought  of  falling 
so  possesses  the  mind  as  to  inhibit  everything  else,  and  natur- 
ally enough  the  motor  response  speedily  follows  by  destroying 
equilibrium  and  causing  the  fall. 

All  organic  tissues  possess  the  properties  of  irritability  and 
contractility.  Every  nerve-cell  is  both  sensory  and  motor. 
Consequently,  whenever  a  sense-organ  is  stimulated,  nervous 
tissues  are  affected,  energy  is  liberated,  and  motor,  i.  e.,  muscu- 
lar, reactions  tend  to  take  place.  This  shows  the  basis  of  ideo- 
motor  activities.  It  is  a  psycho-physical  law  that,  whenever  a 
sensation  or  a  perception  is  received,  some  motor  reaction  must 
occur.  If  the  idea  is  one  that  is  understood  or  is  familiar,  the 
customary  reaction  occurs.  In  every-day  life  there  are  constant 
illustrations  of  this  law.  One  is  in  company  with  another  who 
speaks  or  otherwise  acts  in  a  striking  manner.  The  particular 
action  is  copied  unintentionally,  and  is  at  first  probably  set 
going  only  when  in  company  with  the  copy.  But  by  and  by  the 
process  becomes  so  automatic  and  habitual  that  any  stimulus 
may  cause  it  to  function.  The  given  performance  of  any  act, 
even  an  habitual  one,  is  initiated  through  some  suggesting  factor. 
The  suggestion  may  come  from  without  or  from  within.  At 
first  the  stimuli  come  from  without,  but  later  from  within,  and 
with  sufficient  force  to  initiate  the  process.  Suppose  it  is  a  case 
of  hearing  slang  or  big  words.  They  are  absorbed,  as  it  were. 
By  and  by  the  mere  presence  of  the  teacher  of  them  produces 
an  impulse  to  follow  copy,  and  later,  unless  we  guard  against  it, 
almost  any  impulse  to  expression  is  sufficient  to  suggest  the 
other  accompaniments. 


402  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Sensori-Motor  Action. — The  foregoing  illustrations  are  of  the 
ideo-motor-suggestion  type.  A  persistent  idea  of  an  action 
was  the  suggestive  force.  In  many  cases  of  imitation  the  copy 
is  not  consciously  apprehended  at  all.  It  may  even  come 
merely  as  a  sensation  and  not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  perception. 
For  example,  some  peculiarity  is  copied  when  it  has  never  been 
consciously  perceived  in  another.  It  has,  however,  made  its  im- 
pression and  left  its  mark.  Such  cases  are  termed  by  Baldwin 
as  of  the  sensori-motor-suggestion  type,  while  those  cases  in 
which  the  stimulus  is  a  clearly  pictured  idea  are  termed  ideo- 
motor  suggestions.  The  difference  between  the  two  types  is, 
however,  merely  one  of  degree  and  not  one  of  kind.1  Un- 
doubtedly, far  more  actions  are  copied  because  of  sensori-motor 
or  ideo-motor  suggestion  than  in  a  purposive,  conscious  way. 
One's  speech  is  largely  acquired  in  those  ways,  as  are  nearly  all 
those  habits  which  go  to  make  up  one's  manners  and  bearing. 
One  who  consorts  with  woodmen  and  miners  takes  on  their 
manners,  not  because  he  has  resolved  to  do  so,  but  because  of  a 
law  of  life.  The  Chinaman's  manners  are  those  of  China  be- 
cause of  Chinese  copy,  and  the  Hindoo's  because  of  East  Indian 
copy. 

Fundamentally,  the  simplest  imitation  is  a  phase  of  the 
process  resulting  from  ideo-motor  or  sensori-motor  suggestion. 
The  stimulus  starts  a  motor  reaction,  and  in  turn  this  motor 
reaction  tends  to  reproduce  the  stimulus;  then  the  motor  process 
is  again  reinstated.  As  Baldwin  puts  it,  "the  essential  thing, 
then,  in  imitation,  over  and  above  simple  ideo-motor  suggestion, 
is  that  the  stimulus  starts  a  motor  process  which  tends  to  repro- 
duce the  stimulus,  and,  through  it,  the  motor  process  again.  From 
the  physiological  side  we  have  a  circular  activity — sensor,  motor; 
sensor,  motor;  and  from  the  psychological  side  we  have  a  similar 
circle — reality,  image,  movement;  reality,  image,  movement, 
etc."  The  only  distinction  to  be  made  between  imitation  and 
sensori-motor  suggestion  is  that  in  the  imitative  process  each 
movement  acts  as  a  stimulus  ringing  up  (using  Baldwin's 

1  Mental  Development,  pp.  115-134.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  133. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    403 

figure)  the  succeeding  similar  action.  In  sensori-motor  sug- 
gestion the  motor  effect  is  the  terminating  link  in  the  series. 
But  if  this  link  causes  a  repetition  of  the  process  it  becomes 
imitation;  that  is,  the  first  act  is  the  copy  which  tends  to  perpetu- 
ate itself. 

Imitation  in  Lower  Organisms. — Although  we  usually  ascribe 
imitation  only  to  higher  forms  of  animal  life,  it  must  become 
evident,  from  the  study  of  sensori-motor  action  and  ideo-motor 
action,  that  imitation  may  extend  much  lower  down  in  the  scale 
of  intelligence.  Baldwin  has  given  us  a  very  interesting  and  in- 
structive discussion  of  the  biological  interpretation  of  imitation 
in  which  he  makes  imitation  almost  synonymous  with  organic 
adaptation  and  organic  memory  and  ascribes  it  as  a  characteristic 
of  all  living  matter.1 

Baldwin  maintains,  and  I  subscribe  to  his  doctrine,  that  we 
find  evidence  of  the  imitative,  i.  e.,  self-sustaining,  type  of  re- 
action in  very  simple  organisms.  He  writes  that  "recent  re- 
searches on  the  behavior  of  unicellular  organisms  and  of  plants 
show  the  same  kind  of  so-called  selective  or  'nervous  property,' 
with  antithetic  adaptations  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  These 
creatures  develop  not  by  remaining  still  and  awaiting  the  acci- 
dental repetition  of  stimulations  by  storming  or  assault.  On 
the  contrary,  they  do  exactly  what  we  have  long  thought  it  the 
exclusive  right  of  higher  conscious  creatures  to  do;  they  go 
after,  or  shrink  from,  a  stimulating  influence,  according  as  its 
former  impression  has  been  beneficial  or  damaging.  In  other 
words,  they  perform  reactions  of  the  stimulus-maintaining,  or 
imitative  type."2 

These  imitative  or  circular  reactions,  Baldwin  believes,  are 
manifested  even  by  plants.  Many  complex  plants  manifest  such 
perpetual  movements  as  heliotropism,  geotropism,  and  hydro- 
tropism.  He  quotes  the  great  botanist  Pfeffer  as  saying  "that 
irritability  is  never  simply  the  result  of  the  stimuli  which  bring  out 
the  reaction;  these  only  serve  to  discover  the  properties  and  the 
specific  agencies  of  the  organism  itself,  and  that  the  whole  pro- 

lOp.  cit.,  pp.  263-266.  2  Op.  cit.,  pp.  272-273. 


404  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

ceeding  is  due  to  the  peculiar  energy  of  the  organism." '  All  bac- 
teria seem  to  exhibit  these  circular  reactive  tendencies.  When 
once  stimulated  by  external  agencies,  they  seem  to  perpetuate  the 
same  sort  of  reactions  in  obedience  to  some  inner  power — shall 
we  say  psychic?  Engelmann  says  that  "it  cannot  be  denied 
that  these  facts  point  to  psychical  processes  in  the  protoplasm."2 

One  step  further  and  we  have  Verworn's  theory  that  all  pro- 
toplasmic activity  is  dependent  upon  the  perpetuation  of  the 
activity  once  set  going  by  an  external  stimulus.  Kiihne  be- 
lieves that  fundamentally  oxygen  serves  as  the  external  stimulus 
to  set  the  nervous  protoplasmic  machine  going.  "Kiihne  has 
proved,"  says  Baldwin,  "that  the  oxygen  of  the  air  has  chemical 
affinity  for  the  outer  layer  of  particles  of  a  protoplasmic  mass. 
The  elements  set  free  by  this  union  find  themselves  impelled 
toward  the  centre  by  their  affinity  for  the  nuclear  elements. 
This  new  synthesis  releases  elements  which  again  move  outward 
toward  the  oxygen  at  the  surface.  Thus  there  are  two  con- 
trary movements:  away  from  the  nucleus,  or  expansion,  and 
toward  the  nucleus,  or  contraction.  Considering  the  oxygen 
action  as  stimulus,  we  thus  have  a  reaction  which  keeps  up  the 
action  of  its  own  stimulus,  and  thus  perpetuates  itself,  giving 
just  the  type  of  reaction  which  my  theory,  outlined  above,  calls 
'imitation.'"3 

Auto-Imitation. — It  has  been  necessary  to  consider  in  some 
detail  the  fundamental  nature  of  imitation  in  its  wider  biological 
aspects  in  order  to  explain  the  involuntary  imitation  of  man  and 
other  animals.  Many  of  the  involuntary  imitations  are  repe- 
titions of  activities  set  up  by  the  individual  himself,  i.  e.,  they 
are  not  imitations  of  some  one  else.  They  are  auto-imitations. 
Oftentimes  th&  initial  factor  is  purely  accidental.  For  example, 
the  child  strikes  a  resounding  surface  with  something  in  his  hand. 
It  gives  forth  a  noise  which  pleases  him;  he  repeats  the  act,  and 
the  series  of  circular  reactions — muscular  activity;  sound,  mus- 
cular activity — is  kept  up  until  fatigue  or  exhaustion  occurs. 
The  fatigue  may  be  in  the  arm  muscles  or  in  the  ear.  The  point 

1  Of.  cit.,  p.  275.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  273.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  272. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION     405 

is,  some  nerve-cells  have  become  exhausted  sufficiently  to  inhibit 
the  further  working  of  the  circular  machinery.  Again,  the  child 
accidentally  makes  some  sound,  as  ma,  ma.  It  pleases  him  and 
he  continues  in  an  apparently  unthinking  and  mechanical  way. 
I  have  noticed  a  child  during  the  period  from  the  sixth  to  the 
seventeenth  month  produce  many  of  these  repetitive  babblings. 
A  syllable  such  as  ba,  ba;  da,  da;  ga,  ga;  or  nin,  nin,  hit  upon 
either  out  of  overflowing  pleasure  or  begun  as  a  half-whining 
discord,  has  been  repeated  by  the  quarter  hour.  When  about  ten 
months  old,  my  boy  accidentally  got  hold  of  his  own  tongue.  The 
sensation  received  was  sufficient  stimulus  to  cause  him  to  keep 
up  the  examination  process  for  a  long  time.  Much  earlier,  he 
found  his  toes  and  other  parts  of  the  body  in  the  same  way.  The 
same  stimulus  always  provoked  a  similar  reaction. 

Importance  of  Non-Purposive  Imitation. — The  above  repre- 
sents the  typical  genesis  of  a  large  part  of  the  child's  accomplish- 
ments. He  learns  to  talk  in  this  way,  for  his  first  words  are  not 
imitations  of  his  elders;  his  elders  imitate  him.  He  hits  upon 
new  ways  of  sound-producing,  new  ways  of  locomotion,  new 
ways  of  manipulating  his  hands,  new  ways  of  building,  new  ways 
of  commanding  his  elders,  new  ways  of  sampling  things,  and 
through  the  pleasurable  reaction  he  unreflectingly,  almost  re- 
flexly,  continues  the  pleasurable  process.  "Professor  Preyer's 
child  was  so  delighted  with  the  discovery  that  it  could  put  a 
cover  on  a  box,  that  it  deliberately  took  it  off  and  replaced  it 
seventy-nine  times  without  an  interval  of  rest.  It  was  an  edu- 
cative step  in  its  development — a  step  in  the  discovery  of  its 
selfhood  as  an  energy,  as  well  as  a  step  in  the  discovery  of  adap- 
tation in  the  external  world."1  It  has  been  argued  that  the 
child  even  imitates  pain-bringing  processes,  but  can  it  not  be 
said  that  there  is  a  pleasure — satisfied  curiosity,  accomplish- 
ment of  end,  or  something  of  the  sort  that  serves  as  a  pleasure, 
to  overbalance  the  pain?  Sometimes  adults  irritate  a  wound 
or  a  swelling,  producing  great  pain,  but  over  and  above  the  pain 
is  exquisite  pleasure. 

1  Harris,  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  296. 


4o6  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Are  not  many  of  the  automatisms  of  adult  life  phases  of  the 
non-conscious  imitations  of  the  sensori-motor  and  ideo-motor 
types?  We  are  continually  imitating  things  unintentionally. 
We  of  a  given  section  of  the  country  remove  to  another  section, 
and  ere  we  are  aware  begin  to  change  our  pronunciation.  We 
have  not  intended  to  do  so;  we  have  scouted  the  idea,  even  ridi- 
culed the  custom,  but  here  we  are  following  suit.  Who  has  not 
found  an  accretion  of  slang  adhering  to  his  vocabulary  after 
being  subjected  to  hearing  it  for  some  time?  Who  has  not 
found  himself  unintentionally  gesturing,  or  walking,  or  con- 
ducting himself,  like  some  one  in  whose  company  he  has  recently 
been?  I  have  found  myself  on  the  lecture  platform  assuming 
positions,  tones  of  voice,  general  bearing — rather  lamely — but 
nevertheless  simulating  a  certain  speaker.  I  had  not  intended 
to,  but  his  style  had  so  integrated  itself  into  my  lecture  ideals 
that  here  it  was  working  itself  out  in  motor  consequents.  The 
explanation  above  on  the  basis  of  sensori-motor  relationships 
must  be  extended  to  include  ideo-motor  sequences.  When  we 
shall  have  become  appreciative  of  the  wonderful  and  absolutely 
certain  results  of  ideo-motor  action,  we  shall  be  much  more 
solicitous  to  have  the  mind  constantly  supplied  with  a  stock  of 
desirable  ideas,  resting  assured  that  righteous  action  will  follow 
as  a  consequent  upon  righteous  thinking  and  desiring. 

Beginnings  of  Voluntary  Imitation. — It  is  impossible  to  indi- 
cate any  absolute  time  when  imitations  first  make  their  appear- 
ance. Instinctive  imitations  of  various  kinds  manifest  them- 
selves almost  from  birth  in  the  lower  animals.  Intelligent  imi- 
tations are  usually  ascribed  to  man,  but  undoubtedly  many  of 
the  imitations  of  lower  animals  are  as  clearly  intelligent  as  those 
undesigned  ones  of  man.  The  dog  that  does  just  what  another 
dog  did  in  order  to  be  petted  or  fed,  is  imitating,  and  doing 
the  act  with  an  end  in  view,  and  as  he  has  observed  it  in 
others. 

Darwin  thought  his  boy  imitated  sounds  at  four  months,  but 
was  not  positive  of  any  imitation  until  the  sixth  month.  Preyer 
records  observing  his  child  imitate  pursing  his  lips  in  the  fif- 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    407 

teenth  week.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  these  are  cases  of  deliberate 
imitation,  or  even  imitation  at  all.  Tiedemann  believes  his  son 
made  imitative  movements  with  his  mouth  when  he  saw  any  one 
drinking.  In  the  fourth  month  a  child  has  been  noticed  trying 
to  cough  in  imitation  of  his  own  accidental  coughing.  Preyer 
observed  his  boy  fifteen  months  old  trying  to  blow  out  a  candle- 
light as  he  had  seen  others  do.  I  have  seen  my  child  of  six 
months  try  to  cover  his  face  with  a  handkerchief  to  play  peek-a- 
boo  as  I  had  done.  I  covered  my  face  and  he  also  tried  to  put 
the  handkerchief  over  my  face.  Repeatedly  I  have  seen  him 
strike  the  table  after  seeing  me  drum  on  it  in  trying  to  produce 
a  noise  for  his  amusement.  At  ten  months  he  deliberately  hid 
behind  a  bench  and  occasionally  peeked  out  to  laugh  and  be 
laughed  at.  We  had  not  done  this  identical  thing,  but  was  he 
not  imitating?  At  nine  months  he  tried  to  put  a  spoon  in 
his  mouth  as  he  had  seen  others  do.  At  the  same  age,  after 
pulling  my  hat  off,  he  tried  to  put  it  on  my  head  as  I  did. 

Tracy  says  that  as  early  as  the  third  and  fourth  months  the 
"buddings  of  the  imitative  propensity"  may  be  observed.  "  Raw 
attempts  at  vocal  imitation  may  be  observed  even  in  the  second 
month,  when  the  child  makes  a  response  to  words  addressed  to 
him.  This,  however,  is  mechanical.  In  the  third  month  the 
child  will  imitate  looks,  i.  e.,  he  will  look  at  an  object  at  which 
others  are  looking."  l  I  have  never  observed  anything  of  this 
until  about  the  sixth  month,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  is  an 
imitative  act,  even  though  volitional. 

Champneys  says  his  child  tried  to  imitate  sounds  of  talking 
in  the  thirteenth  week.  UA  boy  of  seven  months  tried  hard  to 
say  simple  monosyllables  after  his  mother.  Another  is  reported 
to  have  accomplished  his  first  unmistakable  imitations  when 
seven  months  old,  in  movements  of  the  head  and  lips,  laughing, 
and  the  like.  Crying  was  imitated  in  the  ninth  month,  and  in 
the  tenth  imitation  of  all  sorts  was  quite  correctly  executed, 
though  even  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  new  movements, 
and  those  requiring  complex  co-ordination,  often  failed.  A 

1  Psychology  of  Childhood,  p.  104. 


4o8  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

child  of  eight  and  a  half  months,  having  seen  the  mother  poke 
the  fire,  afterwards  crept  to  the  hearth,  seized  the  poker,  thrust  it 
into  the  ash-pan,  and  poked  it  back  and  forth  with  great  glee, 
chuckling  to  himself.  Another  child,  in  his  tenth  month,  imi- 
tated whistling,  and  later,  the  motions  accompanying  the  fa- 
miliar '  pat-a-cake, '  etc.  In  his  eleventh  month  he  used  to  hold 
up  the  newspaper  and  mumble  in  imitation  of  reading.  Another 
boy,  in  his  eleventh  month,  used  to  cough  and  sniff  like  his 
grandfather,  and  amused  himself  by  grunting,  crowing,  gobbling 
and  barking  in  imitation  of  the  domestic  animals  and  birds.  A 
little  girl  of  this  age  used  to  reproduce  with  her  doll  some  of  her 
own  experiences,  such  as  giving  it  a  bath,  punishing  it,  kissing  it, 
and  singing  it  to  sleep."  1 

Dramatic  Imitation. — One  of  the  important  elements  of  dra- 
matic representation  is  the  imitative.  Through  suggestion  an 
idea  is  received  and  its  representation  is  carried  out  with  more 
or  less  fidelity.  In  children  the  impersonated  self  often  be- 
comes so  real  as  temporarily  to  supplant  the  usual  self.  James 
writes:2  "For  a  few  months  in  one  of  my  children's  third 
year  he  literally  hardly  ever  appeared  in  his  own  person.  It  was 
always  'Play  I'm  So-and-so,  and  you  are  So-and-so,  and  the 
chair  is  such  a  thing,  and  then  we'll  do  this  or  that.'  If  you 
called  him  by  his  name,  H.,  you  invariably  got  the  reply,  'I'm 
not  H.,  I'm  a  hyena,  or  a  horse-car,'  or  whatever  the  feigned 
object  might  be.  He  outwore  the  impulse  after  a  time;  but 
while  it  lasted,  it  had  every  appearance  of  being  the  automatic 
result  of  ideas,  often  suggested  by  perceptions,  working  out  ir- 
resistible motor  effects."  Sully  tells  us  that  children,  when  pre- 
tending to  live  another  life,  frequently  resent  any  intrusion  that 
seems  to  contradict  the  harmony  of  the  simulated  world.  He 
relates  that  "a  little  girl  of  four  was  playing  'shop'  with  her 
younger  sister.  'The  elder  one,'  (writes  the  mother)  'was 
shopman  at  the  time  I  came  into  her  room  and  kissed  her.  She 
broke  out  into  piteous  sobs.  I  could  not  understand  why.  At 

1  Tracy,  op.  cit.,  p.  104. 

2  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  p.  409. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    409 

last  she  sobbed  out:  "Mother,  you  never  kiss  the  man  in  the 
shop."  I  had  with  my  kiss  quite  spoilt  her  illusion.'"  ' 

Imitation  Is  Not  Servility. — Imitativeness  has  been  popularly 
supposed  to  be  a  mark  of  servility;  a  characteristic  only  of  those 
who  are  immature  or  mentally  deficient.  But  in  the  light  of 
recent  investigation  it  has  received  new  interpretation.  Instead 
of  being  confined  to  certain  animals,  children,  and  abnormal 
adults,  it  is  found  to  be  a  most  fundamental  Jaw  of  psycho- 
physical  action.  All  animals,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest 
forms,  are  imitative.  Many  animal-trainers  exclude  all  animals 
that  do  not  show  some  aptness  at  imitating.  Only  those  that 
show  some  imitative  tendency  can  be  successfully  trained.  Chil- 
dren who  do  not  imitate  readily  are  always  dull.  We  are  wholly 
justified  in  saying  that  the  more  imitative  the  individual,  the 
more  educable. 

Imitation  in  Social  Life. — Imitation  is  so  common  that  we 
scarcely  think  of  its  exceeding  potency  in  the  development  of  in- 
dividual and  social  life.  Most  psychologists,  even,  have  passed  it 
by  with  scarce  honorable  mention.  But  when  we  have  analyzed 
it  and  found  how  intimately  it  is  interwoven  with  nearly  every 
other  psychic  function,  we  do  not  doubt  its  importance.  When 
we  attempt  to  merely  catalogue  the  various  ways  in  which  it  is 
manifested,  we  realize  the  impossibility  of  doing  the  subject 
justice.  Professor  Royce  writes:  "Were  I  anxious,  then,  for 
mere  illustrations  of  the  frequency  of  the  imitative  functions 
in  the  life  of  man,  I  should  indeed  have  no  trouble  in  getting  my 
fill  of  them,  without  other  aid  than  that  of  my  own  eyes."  In 
fact,  we  may  rightly  conclude  that  our  whole  social  fabric  and 
moral  practices  are  largely  determined  by  imitation. 

For  example,  imitation  is  rife  in  politics.  The  majority 
of  men  vote  the  party  ticket  of  their  fathers.  Few  come  to 
fixed,  independent  beliefs  through  reflection  and  deliberation. 
Men  often  believe  themselves  original  thinkers,  but  even  college- 
bred  men  vote  largely  as  their  fathers  did.  Deahl  made  an  in- 
vestigation which,  though  in  a  somewhat  limited  field,  confirms 

1  Children's  }Vayst  p.  23. 


4io  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

casual  observations.  He  found  that  out  of  fifty  men  selected 
from  among  college  graduates,  and  many  of  them  college  pro- 
fessors, eighty-four  per  cent,  voted  the  same  ticket  as  their 
fathers  voted.1  Could  a  promiscuous  canvass  of  the  less  well 
educated  be  secured,  the  percentage  would  probably  be  even 
larger. 

Commercial  panics  are  good  examples  of  the  force  of  wholesale 
imitation.  Lei  it  be  rumored  that  there  is  a  run  on  the  bank. 
If  a  neighbor  is  known  to  have  withdrawn  deposits,  a  dozen  will 
follow  his  example,  and  immediately  a  stampede'  is  precipi- 
tated. At  a  fire,  one  giddy,  emotional  individual  can  cause  the 
multitude  to  indulge  in  a  mad,  frenzied  rush,  while  a  calm, 
phlegmatic  temperament  assuming  generalship  can  quiet  the 
turbulence  and  lead  the  unstable  throng  to  safety.  Because  of 
suggestibility  and  imitation  we  have  such  phenomena  as  the  re- 
ligious crazes  of  the  Middle  Ages,  mediaeval  mental  epidemics, 
witchcraft,  demonophobia,  the  Dutch  tulip  craze,  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi scheme.  In  the  presence  of  a  crowd  the  suggestibility  of 
each  individual  is  heightened,  and  the  tendency  to  imitate  rash 
actions  is  much  greater.  Sidissays:  "  Men  think  in  crowds,  and 
go  mad  in  herds."  2  James  says  this  impulsive  tendency  to  act 
in  crowds  as  soon  as  a  certain  perception  occurs  is  instinctive  in 
man  and  other  gregarious  animals.  Leadership,  except  when 
accompanied  by  perfect  sanity,  is  apt  at  some  time  to  lead  mul- 
titudes to  disaster.  The  Crusades  serve  as  a  good  example  of 
what  I  mean.  Tarde  writes :  "  In  general,  a  naturally  prestigeful 
man  will  stimulate  thousands  of  people  to  copy  him  in  every  par- 
ticular, even  in  that  of  his  prestige,  thereby  enabling  them  to 
influence,  in  turn,  millions  of  inferior  men."3 

Royce  says  that  "among  children  and  among  adults  virtue  and 
vice  alike  are,  under  favorable  circumstances,  'catching';  that 
fashion  has,  in  certain  matters,  an  irresistible  sway;  that  not 
only  commercial  panics,  and  mobs,  and  'fads,'  but  also  great 
reform  movements,  and  disciplined  armies,  and  such  historical 

1  Imitation  in  Education,  p.  25.  2  Psychology  of  Suggestion,  p.  343. 

3  Laws  of  Imitation,  p.  84. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION  411 

events  as  the  conversion  of  nations  in  the  old  days  from  hea- 
thenism to  Christianity,  all  illustrate,  in  their  several  ways,  the 
potency  of  imitative  tendencies;  and  that  art  itself,  at  least  ac- 
cording to  Aristotle's  famous  definition,  is  essentially  imitation. 
We  know  that  there  are  sometimes  epidemics  of  crime  or  of  sui- 
cide. We  know  that  the  doleful  prevalence  of  the  current  popu- 
lar melody  is  due,  not  to  a  love  of  music,  but  to  the  insistent 
force  of  the  imitative  tendency.  Turn,  thus,  which  way  we 
will,  the  familiar  presence  of  the  imitative  functions  in  human 
life  impresses  itself  upon  us."  * 

In  emphasizing  the  unconscious  power  of  imitation,  Royce 
cites  Tarde,  who  "asserted  and  developed  the  interesting  for- 
mula that  what  the  individual  hypnotizer  is  to  his  sleeping  and 
abnormally  plastic  subject,  such,  almost  precisely,  is  society  to 
the  waking  and  normally  plastic  man."  Tarde  has  somewhere 
said  in  effect  that  "society  is  imitation,  and  imitation  is  a  kind 
of  somnambulism."  The  laws  of  imitation  are  precisely  the 
same  laws  of  psycho-physical  action  that  govern  hypnotism.  In 
the  hypnotic  state  the  ordinary  inhibitions  of  normal  waking 
life  are  removed.  The  hypnotist  then  monopolizes  the  attention 
with  ideas  of  whatever  he  wishes  to  have  the  subject  execute. 
Then,  because  of  the  laws  of  ideo-motor  action,  the  results  follow 
as  a  matter  of  course.  The  teacher  would  perhaps  better  not 
proclaim  hypnotic  laws  as  one  of  his  usual  methods  of  securing 
obedience,  but  the  psychologist  recognizes  that  the  successful 
teacher  utilizes  exactly  the  same  fundamental  laws  as  does  the 
hypnotist. 

Dr.  Harris  writes:2  "The  place  of  imitation  in  the  develop- 
ment of  civilized  man  is  beginning  to  be  recognized.  Not  only 
does  imitation  give  rise  to  language,  but  it  leads  to  the  forma- 
tion of  institutions,  the  family,  civil  community,  the  state,  the 
church — those  greater  selves  wrhich  re-enforce  the  little  selves 
of  isolated  individuals.  Imitation  is  social  in  its  very  nature, 
for  it  is  the  repetition  by  the  individual  within  himself  of  the 

1  Century  Magazine,  48:    138. 

2  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  299. 


4i2  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

deeds  of  his  fellows.  .  .  .  The  individual  man  repeats  for  him- 
self the  thinking  and  doing  and  feeling  of  his  fellows,  and  thus 
enriches  his  own  life  by  adding  to  it  the  lives  of  others.  Thus 
...  his  own  life  becomes  vicarious  for  others,  and  he  partici- 
pates vicariously  in  the  life  of  society.  The  psychology  of  imita- 
tion explains  the  mode  in  which  the  individual  unites  with  his 
fellow-men  to  form  a  social  whole." 

He  further  writes:1  "Thus  we  see  that  there  is  an  element 
of  originality  in  the  most  mechanical  phase  of  imitation.  The 
self  is  active  and  assimilative.  It  sees  an  external  deed  which 
it  proceeds  to  make  its  own  deed  by  imitation.  The  child 
proves  itself  to  possess  a  human  nature  identical  with  the  one 
whom  it  imitates.  Originality  grows  by  progressive  deepening 
of  the  insight  into  the  causes  and  motives  of  the  thing  imi- 
tated. The  lowest  stage  of  imitation  superstititiously  imitates 
all  the  details,  because  it  has  no  insight  into  the  grounds  and 
purposes  of  the  action  imitated,  and  but  little  comprehension 
of  the  means  employed.  When  it  understands  the  means  and 
the  motives,  it  strikes  out  for  itself  and  makes  new  adapta- 
tions. It  modifies  its  imitations  to  suit  differences  of  circum- 
stances. Originality  grows  with  this  ascending  comprehension 
of  means  and  purposes.  There  comes  a  time  when  the  imi- 
tative child  comprehends  the  principle  as  well  as  does  the 
master  whom  he  imitates,  and  then  he  is  emancipated  from  all 
imitation  in  this  part  of  his  education.  If  he  keeps  on  and  com- 
prehends the  genesis  of  the  principle  from  deeper  principles,  he 
emancipates  himself  from  even  the  'hypnotic  suggestion'  of 
the  principle  itself,  and  all  external  authority  has  become  in- 
ward freedom." 

Imitation  in  the  Fine  Arts. — Although  the  products  of  the  fine 
arts  are  not  mere  copies,  they  are,  nevertheless,  imitative.  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  says:  "Our  art  is  not  a  divine  gift,  neither  is  it 
a  mechanical  trade."  Even  though  an  artist  does  not  copy 
other  works  of  art,  he  must  go  to  nature  for  her  innumerable 
forms.  Goethe  writes:  "The  artist  must  hold  to  nature,  imitate 

1  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  302. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION  413 

her.  He  must  choose  the  best  out  of  the  good  before  him." 
Art  has  gradually  developed  by  slowly  accumulating  imitative 
accretions.  Visit  the  famous  art  galleries  and  study  the  art  of 
schools  or  periods.  To  the  novice  the  sameness  in  a  given 
school  or  period  is  more  striking  than  the  differences.  The  in- 
dividual variations  which  the  connoisseur  recognizes  as  origi- 
nality and  marks  of  genius  are  very  real  and  very  great  to  the 
critical  eye,  but  they  are  apt  to  be  overlooked  by  the  mul- 
titude. 

Deahl  writes:  "The  fundamental  principle  in  any  school  of 
art  or  of  literature  is  imitation.  Among  the  master  artists  it  is 
selective,  intelligent,  often  unconscious  imitation.  Among  the 
second  or  third  rate  artists  imitation  is  the  cause  of  the  simi- 
larity, but  is  a  less  intelligent,  a  more  mechanical  kind  of  imita- 
tion; it  approaches  nearer  to  what  we  term  copying."  *  Before 
the  artist  exhibits  great  originality  he  must  spend  years  in  imi- 
tating— either  nature  or  the  products  of  other  artists.  This  in 
no  wise  implies  mere  copying.  It  means  that  the  great  works 
should  be  studied,  the  principles  mastered,  the  ideals  absorbed, 
and  new  inspiration  developed  out  of  them.  It  is  said  that 
William  M.  Hunt,  one  of  America's  eminent  artists,  advised  con- 
tinued study  of  the  best  works  of  art.  "You  must  set  yourself 
ahead  by  studying  fine  things.  I've  told  you  over  and  over  again 
whose  works  to  draw — Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  Diirer,  Hol- 
bein, Mantegna.  Get  hold  of  something  of  theirs.  Hang  it  up 
in  your  room,  trace  it,  copy  it,  draw  it  from  memory  over  and 
over,  until  you  own  it  as  you  own  '  Casabianca'  and  '  Mary  had 
a  Little  Lamb.'"2 

Imitation  in  Literature. — Although  imitations  are  not  so  easily 
traceable  in  literary  productions,  yet  a  critical  study  of  many  of 
the  masterpieces  will  disclose  the  effects  of  suggestion,  at  least. 
Longfellow's  "Hiawatha,"  as  is  well  known,  has  a  proto- 
type in  the  Finnish  poem,  "Kalevala."  Longfellow  cannot 
be  said  to  have  copied  from  "Kalevala,"  but  he  received  very 

1  Imitation  in  Education,  p.  31. 
3  Quoted  by  Deahl,  op.  cit.,  p.  29. 


414  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

definite  suggestions  as  to  both  the  form  and  the  content.  Chau- 
cer was  doubtless  much  indebted  to  Boccaccio  for  suggestions 
which  were  utilized  in  The  Canterbury  Tales.  Most  of  Shake- 
speare's plots  were  not  absolutely  original  with  him.  Carlyle's 
Sartor  Resartus  is  plainly  of  German  origin.  Rabelais,  while  imi- 
tating the  Greeks,  afforded  suggestions  for  many  who  followed 
him.  Many  incidents  similiar  to  those  in  Don  Quixote,  Robinson 
Crusoe,  and  Gulliver's  Travels  under  other  names  and  bearing 
the  imprint  of  other  pens  are  said  to  have  delighted  many,  even 
centuries  ago.  To  assert  these  facts  is  in  no  wise  to  discredit  the 
authors.  To  be  able  to  imitate  and  give  in  addition  the  creative 
touch  of  a  new  whole  is  evidence  of  genius.  The  majority 
either  copy  blindly  and  poorly  without  deviation  or  advance, 
or  they  do  not  see  what  is  worth  while  to  imitate.  Without 
making  use  of  what  has  been  wrought  and  giving  it  a  new 
turn,  the  world  would  remain  at  a  standstill.  To  imitate  is 
no  sign  of  weakness.  "When  a  writer  improves  what  he  imi- 
tates, he  does  well;  but  when  he  fails  to  add  beauty,  we 
condemn  him.  New  light,  or  grace,  or  charm  must  be  given. 
In  the  progress  of  the  mind,  in  all  departments  of  literature, 
we  find  imitation,  the  most  palpable  in  the  books  we  most 
admire."  * 

Educational  Value  of  Imitation — General. — Although  mere 
ability  to  copy,  without  discrimination  in  selecting  copy  and 
without  judgment  in  making  use  of  what  is  copied,  is  not  a  high 
accomplishment,  yet  the  instinct  and  the  capacity  to  imitate 
furnish  the  starting-point  for  all  improvement.  Otherwise,  of 
what  use  would  experience  be?  Professor  Royce  says  that 
"only  the  imitative  animal  can  become  rational."  As  we  begin 
to  understand  its  nature  and  its  possibilities  better,  we  shall  make 
more  definite  attempts  to  utilize  imitation  in  education.  It  is 
at  once  evident  that  a  force  so  potent  in  shaping  thought  and 
action,  whether  we  will  or  no,  should  be  considered  in  the 
purposive  regulation  of  thought  and  conduct.  If,  through  ideo- 
motor  action  and  imitation,  we  necessarily  appropriate  our 

1  Deahl,  op.  cit.,  p.  33. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION  415 

environment  and  become  modified  in  consonance  with  it,  we  are 
plainly  admonished  to  shape  environment  so  as  to  contribute  best 
toward  the  ideal  results  desired.  If  we  must  imitate,  the  great 
educational  question  is  how  to  select  wisely  copy  that  is 
worthy  of  imitation. 

Every  teacher  ought  to  understand  the  great  importance  of 
imitation.  Up  to  the  time  the  child  has  entered  school,  a  very 
large  proportion  of  its  knowledge  has  been  gained  and  retained 
in  a  purely  imitative  way.  Several  of  the  ancient  writers  on 
education  realized  the  importance  of  imitation  in  education. 
Plato  shows  its  value  in  learning  language,  music,  painting, 
science,  dancing,  literary  style,  and  also  in  the  formation  of 
character.  Xenophon  believed  that  the  most  effective  way  of 
teaching  behavior  and  manners  is  through  imitation.  Aristotle 
cautions  against  leaving  children  much  with  slaves,  and  also 
urges  us  to  be  careful  what  stories  children  hear.  Many  Greeks 
are  known  to  have  been  solicitous  that  their  children  should 
mingle  with  those  only  who  spoke  pure  Greek.  Plutarch  urged 
in  his  essay  on  The  Training  of  Children  that  they  should  be 
shielded  "lest,  being  constantly  used  to  converse  with  persons 
of  a  barbarous  language  and  evil  manners,  they  receive  corrupt 
tinctures  from  them.  For  it  is  a  true  proverb,  'that  if  you  live 
with  a  lame  man  you  will  learn  to  halt.'"  Quintilian  would 
insist  that  the  nurse  have  a  good  moral  character,  and  that  she 
should  "also  speak  with  propriety.  Let  the  child  not  be  accus- 
tomed, therefore,  even  while  he  is  yet  an  infant,  to  phraseology 
which  must  be  unlearned."  Walt  Whitman  writes: 

"There  was  a  child  went  forth  every  day, 
And  the  first  object  he  looked  upon,  that  object  he  became, 
And  that  object  became  part  of  him  for  the  day,  or  a  certain 

part  of  the  day, 

Or  for  years  or  stretching  cycles  of  years. 
The  early  lilacs  became  part  of  this  child." 

Another  poet  wrote: 

"This  price  the  gods  exact  for  song, — 
That  we  become  what  we  sine." 


416  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

From  Walter  Pater  we  have  the  following  words  apropos  of 
the  subject: 

" Imitation :  it  enters  into  the  very  fastnesses  of  character;  and 
we,  our  souls,  ourselves,  are  forever  imitating  what  we  see  and 
hear,  the  forms,  the  sounds  which  haunt  our  memories,  our  im- 
agination. We  imitate  not  only  if  we  play  a  part  on  the  stage, 
but  when  we  sit  as  spectators,  while  our  thoughts  follow  the 
acting  of  another,  when  we  read  Homer  and  put  ourselves 
lightly,  fluently,  into  the  place  of  those  he  describes:  we  imitate 
unconsciously  the  line  and  color  of  the  walls  around  us,  the  trees 
by  the  wayside,  the  animals  we  pet  or  make  use  of,  the  very  dress 
we  wear.  Men,  children  are  susceptible  beings,  in  great  meas- 
ure conditioned  by  the  mere  look  of  their  'medium.'  Like 
those  insects,  we  might  fancy,  of  which  naturalists  tell  us,  taking 
color  from  the  plants  they  lodge  on,  they  will  come  to  match 
with  much  servility  the  aspects  of  the  world  about  them."  1 

Imitation  in  Language  Education. — Think  what  it  means  to 
learn  to  talk !  A  grown  person  would  give  a  great  deal  to  learn 
to  speak  a  foreign  language  correctly  in  a  few  years.  The  child 
at  five  or  six  years  has  gained  almost  perfect  command  of  the 
oral  expression  of  all  his  thoughts.  Of  course,  his  ideas  and 
his  vocabulary  are  limited,  but  his  expression  is  almost  perfect 
within  his  limited  range.  At  this  age  the  number  of  words  is  not 
so  small,  either,  as  one  might  suppose.  An  average  child  of  six 
years,  brought  up  in  a  good  home,  possesses  a  usable  vocabulary 
of  a  couple  of  thousand  words.  He  understands  nearly  double 
that  many.  An  adult  often  spends  years  of  painfully  conscious 
labor  in  acquiring  the  vocabulary  of  a  foreign  language.  Not 
only  does  imitation  determine  the  tongue  which  the  child  is 
to  speak,  but  the  vocabulary,  the  inflection,  to  some  extent  the 
tone,  the  rapidity  of  speech,  order  of  words,  and  choice  of  illus- 
trations, are  also  all  matters  of  imitation. 

It  is  easy  to  recognize  the  role  played  by  imitation  in  the  first 
years  of  childish  attempts  to  master  the  mother  tongue.  Chil- 
dren learn  through  imitation  to  clip  their  words,  to  intone  them 

1  Plato  and  Platonism,  p.  24/5. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION     417 

clearly,  to  talk  in  monosyllables,  or  to  drawl.  The  boy  when 
asked  why  he  drawled  his  words  replied,  "  Mother  drawls  her'n." 
The  deaf  child,  unable  to  imitate  the  speech  of  his  fellows,  re- 
mains mute  (unless  he  learns  lip  or  throat  reading).  The  child 
who  lives  in  a  home  where  correct  language  is  spoken,  and  who 
hears  good  language  among  his  playmates,  will  speak  correctly, 
barring  a  few  inaccuracies  resulting  from  irregularities  in  the 
structure  of  the  language.  He  will  learn  to  syllabicate  properly, 
utter  words  distinctly,  and  to  give  correct  emphasis  to  his  ex- 
pressions. The  teaching  of  language  in  schools  is  often  ren- 
dered difficult  because  children  have  so  much  to  unlearn.  Years 
of  imitation  of  undesirable  models  counteract  the  efforts  in  the 
right  direction.  Chubb  in  his  admirable  work,  The  Teaching 
of  English,  has  some  very  valuable  words  concerning  imita- 
tion. He  says  we  shall  be  less  prone  to  exhaust  the  child  by  this 
effort  to  "draw  him  out,  and  get  him  to  overhaul  and  dissect 
and  play  the  showman  to  his  possessions,  if  we  bear  in  mind  more 
constantly  the  nature  of  the  assimilative  process;  so  that  we 
may  assist  rather  than  retard  it.  The  prehensile  power  of  the 
child  is  not  so  much  rational  and  analytic,  as  imaginative  and 
imitative.  The  way  to  get  him  to  appropriate  a  fact  or  idea 
is  not  to  labor  with  him  until  he  knows  that  he  knows,  but  to 
insure  some  sort  of  unconscious  imitative  reaction.  He  must 
unconsciously  do  something  about  it.  ...  We  conclude  that 
everything  he  sees  and  hears  evokes  a  motor  responsiveness  in 
him;  it  comes  loaded  with  motor  suggestion  and  starts  a  process 
of  motor  reaction,  a  process  that  education  may  either  inhibit 
or  encourage.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  that  he  should  act- 
ually re-enact  the  story  he  has  heard,  that  he  should  physically 
do  something  about  it;  he  may  react  imaginatively."  * 

Roger  Ascham  insists  that  "All  languages,  both  learned  and 
mother  tongue,  be  gotten,  and  gotten  onlie  by  imitation.  For 
as  ye  vse  to  heare,  so  ye  learne  to  speaker  if  ye  heare  no 
other,  ye  speake  not  your  selfe;  and  whome  ye  onlie  heare,  of 
them  you  onlie  learne.  .  .  .  And,  therefore,  if  ye  would 

'Chubb,  The  Teaching  of  English,  p.  31. 


4i8  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

speake  as  the  best  and  wisest  do,  ye  must  be  conversant,  where 
the  best  and  wisest  are :  but  if  you  be  borne  or  brought  up  in  a 
rude  countrie,  ye  shall  not  chose  but  speake  rudelie:  the  rudest 
man  of  all  knoweth  this  to  be  trewe."  * 

In  all  language  acquisition  of  the  child,  the  most  important 
factor  is  imitation — at  first  unstudied  and  purely  absorptive,  and 
gradually  becoming  conscious  and  purposive.  At  first  the  all- 
important  thing  is  to  have  the  child  hear  only  the  purest  of 
speech.  He  will  then  re-echo  exactly  as  he  has  heard.  Later 
he  should  not  only  hear  pure  speech,  but  he  should  become  satu- 
rated with  the  forms  of  the  choicest  diction  expressed  in  litera- 
ture. Gradually  the  beauty  of  forms  of  expression  in  literature 
should  be  brought  to  his  consciousness  in  order  that  he  may  rise 
from  the  stage  of  reflex  imitation  to  the  higher,  studied  idealistic 
stage.  The  primary  consideration,  however,  is  to  so  pre-empt  the 
mind  with  the  choicest  form  and  content  in  literature  that  spon- 
taneous expression  of  a  similar  nature  will  follow  necessarily  as 
a  result  of  the  laws  of  ideo-motor  action. 

Properly  guarded,  even  definitely  studied  imitative  reproduc- 
tion of  the  best  models  is  of  great  assistance  in  acquiring  ideal 
habits  of  expression.  Occasionally,  when  a  pupil  has  read  a 
piece  of  literature,  it  is  well  to  have  him  reproduce  it  with  all 
the  imitativeness  he  can  command.  For  what  other  purpose 
has  he  studied  than  to  make  the  thought  and  the  art  his  own? 
So  long  as  the  art  has  become  integrated  into  his  own  style  and 
is  not  a  borrowed  garment  put  on  for  the  occasion,  there  is  no 
danger.  A  careful  distinction  must,  of  course,  be  kept  in  mind 
between  proper  imitation  and  mere  copying.  Spontaneity  and 
naturalness  are  prime  desiderata,  and  are  not  sacrificed  if  the 
language  work  is  made  a  matter  of  assimilation  and  not  one  of 
mechanical  memory.  The  models  for  studied  imitation  should 
also  be  varied,  and  none  long  continued. 

The  place  and  meaning  of  imitation  which  are  here  desired 
to  be  emphasized  are  well  illustrated  in  many  of  the  present-day 
books  on  composition,  in  which  the  basis  of  composition  work  is 

1  The  Schoolemaster. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    419 

to  be  the  study  of  the  choicest  literary  models  of  the  various  forms 
of  composition.  The  relation  between  composition  and  literature 
is  well  set  forth  by  Principal  Webster  in  the  preface  to  his  book 
on  teaching  composition  through  the  study  of  models.  He  says: 

"There  are  two  classes  of  artists:  geniuses  and  men  of  talent. 
Of  geniuses  in  literature,  one  can  count  the  names  on  his  fingers; 
most  authors  are  simply  men  of  talent.  Talent  learns  to  do  by 
doing,  and  by  observing  how  others  have  done.  When  Brunel- 
leschi  left  Rome  for  Florence,  he  had  closely  observed  and  had 
drawn  every  arch  of  the  stupendous  architecture  in  that  ancient 
city;  and  so  he  was  adjudged  by  his  fellow  citizens  to  be  the  only 
man  competent  to  lift  the  dome  of  their  Duomo.  His  observa- 
tion discovered  the  secret  of  Rome's  architectural  grandeur; 
and  it  is  the  accumulation  of  such  secrets  which  is  the  develop- 
ment of  every  art  and  science.  Milton  had  his  method  of  writing 
prose,  Macaulay  his,  and  Arnold  his — all  different  and  all  excel- 
lent. And  just  as  the  architect  stands  before  the  cathedrals  of 
Cologne,  Milan,  and  Salisbury  to  learn  the  secret  of  each;  as  the 
painter  searches  out  the  secret  of  Raphael,  Murillo,  and  Rem- 
brandt; so  the  author  analyzes  the  masterpieces  of  literature  to 
discover  the  secret  of  Irving,  of  Eliot,  and  of  Burke.  Not  that 
an  author  is  to  be  a  servile  imitator  of  any  man's  manner;  but 
that,  having  knowledge  of  all  the  secrets  of  composition,  he  shall 
so  be  enabled  to  set  forth  for  others  his  own  thought  in  all  the 
beauty  and  perfection  in  which  he  himself  conceives  it."  l 

Chubb  says:  "  Children  learn  their  native  tongue  by  imitation; 
and  imitation  continues  to  be,  throughout  the  school  course,  the 
chief  factor  in  language  work.  The  rules  of  grammar  and  rhe- 
torical precept  are  later  and  comparatively  unimportant  means 
to  the  end  sought.  Of  models,  the  most  influential  is  the  teacher 
herself;  the  influence  of  book  models  is  heavily  discounted  if 
the  teacher's  own  practice  is  not  exemplary  and  winning.  And 
by  example  we  mean,  first  and  foremost,  oral  example."  2 

1  English  Composition  and  Literature,  p.  ix.     Another  book  illustrating  the 
same  plan  is  that  of  Kavana  and  Beatty,  Composition  and  Rhetoric. 
3  The  Teaching  of  English,  p.  374. 


420  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

He  further  says :  "  Children  learn  to  write  as  they  learn  to 
swim — by  watching  and  imitating  others;  by  trying  under  the 
lead  of  a  model.  They  develop  a  feeling  and  instinct  and  knack 
for  writing,  without  which  they  will  never  be  effective  as  writers. 
.  .  .  The  child  or  youth  who  writes  well  is  he  who  feels  that 
he  has  something  to  say,  wants  to  say  it,  and  to  say  it  well — to 
make  his  point.  He  naturally  falls  back,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, upon  examples  known  to  him."  1 

The  testimony  of  some  really  successful  writers  concerning 
their  method  of  learning  to  write  should  be  valuable.  Steven- 
son writes  of  imitation  in  this  connection:  "That,  like  it  or 
not,  is  the  way  to  learn  to  write.  It  was  so  Keats  learned, 
and  there  never  was  a  finer  temperament  for  literature  than 
Keats's;  it  is  so,  if  we  could  trace  it  out,  that  all  men  have  learned. 
Perhaps  I  hear  some  one  cry  out:  ' But  that  is  not  the  way  to  be 
original!'  It  is  not;  nor  is  there  any  way  but  to  be  born  so. 
Nor  yet,  if  you  are  born  original,  is  there  anything  in  this  train- 
ing that  shall  clip  the  wings  of  your  originality.  There  can  be 
no  one  more  original  than  Montaigne,  neither  could  any  be 
more  unlike  Cicero;  yet  no  craftsman  can  fail  to  see  how  much 
the  one  in  his  time  tried  to  imitate  the  other.  Burns  is  the  very 
type  of  a  prime  force  in  letters;  he  was  of  all  men  the  most 
imitative.  Shakespeare  himself,  the  imperial,  proceeds  directly 
from  a  school.  Nor  is  there  anything  here  that  should  astonish 
the  considerate.  Before  he  can  tell  what  cadences  he  truly 
prefers,  the  student  should  have  tried  all  that  are  possible; 
before  he  can  choose  and  preserve  a  fitting  key  of  words,  he 
should  long  have  practiced  the  literary  scales  .  .  .  and  it  is 
the  great  point  of  these  imitations  that  there  still  shines  beyond 
the  student's  reach  his  inimitable  model." 

Stevenson  further  says:  "Whenever  I  read  a  book  or  passage 
that  particularly  pleased  me,  I  must  sit  down  at  once  and  set 
myself  to  imitate  that  quality  of  propriety  or  conspicuous  force 
or  happy  distinction  in  style.  I  was  unsuccessful  and  I  knew 
it,  but  I  got  some  practice  in  these  vain  bouts  in  rhythm,  in 
1  Op.  cii.,  p.  382. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    421 

harmony,  in  construction,  and  in  co-ordination  of  parts.  I 
have  thus  played  the  sedulous  ape  to  Hazlitt,  to  Lamb,  to 
Wordsworth,  to  Browne,  to  Defoe,  to  Hawthorne,  to  Mon- 
taigne, to  Baudelaire,  and  to  Obermann."  1 

Franklin's  early  reading  gave  him  a  bias  toward  dogmatic 
disputation.  This  was  later  overcome  by  imitation  of  a  differ- 
ent style.  He  found  himself  lacking  "in  elegance  of  expression, 
in  method,  and  in  perspicuity."  He  then  came  across  a  volume 
of  the  Spectator,  of  which  he  says,  "I  read  it  over  and  over  and 
was  much  delighted  with  it.  I  thought  the  writing  was  excel- 
lent, and  wished,  if  possible,  to  imitate  it.  With  that  view  I  took 
some  of  the  papers,  and  making  short  hints  of  the  sentiments  in 
each  sentence,  laid  them  by  a  few  days,  and  then,  without  look- 
ing at  the  work,  tried  to  complete  the  papers  again,  by  expressing 
each  hinted  sentiment  at  length,  and  as  fully  as  it  had  been  ex- 
pressed before,  in  any  suitable  words  that  should  occur  to  me. 
Then  I  compared  my  'Spectator'  with  the  original,  discovered 
some  of  my  faults,  and  corrected  them."  To  acquire  a  stock 
of  words  and  a  readiness  in  recollection  and  use  of  them,  he 
"took  some  of  the  tales  in  the  'Spectator'  and  turned  them  into 
verse;  and  after  a  time  when  I  had  pretty  well  forgotten  the 
prose,  turned  them  back  again." 

Imitation  in  Developing  Personality. — The  teacher  needs  to 
observe  carefully  the  effects  of  varying  impressions  upon  the 
class.  Warner  tells  us2  that "  the  sight  of  your  movement  brings 
into  activity  the  same  combination  of  nerve-centres  as  you  use. 
This  is  one  means  by  which  you  determine  action  in  the  child's 
brain."  Because  children  are  such  imitators  of  one  another 
they  are  unconsciously  securing  some  sort  of  education.  Care 
must  be  exercised  to  exclude  undesirable  companions,  those  with 
either  physical,  mental,  or  moral  defects.  Cases  are  numerous 
in  which  those  afflicted  with  diseases  such  as  St.  Vitus'  dance 
(chorea)  have  caused  others  to  become  afflicted  solely  through 
imitation.  Stammering,  hysterics,  and  even  ordinary  fright 

1  Stevenson,  Memories  and  Portraits,  p.  55. 
3  Mental  Faculty,  p.  89. 


422  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

become  epidemic.  Children  possessing  tendencies  toward  ex- 
citability and  over-mobility  should  be  with  children  having  good 
self-control.  By  imitation  of  these  latter  the  pathological  ten- 
dencies may  disappear.  Yawning,  gaping,  coughing,  restless- 
ness, may  become  infectious  in  a  class.  Every  word,  gesture, 
peculiarity  of  walk,  facial  expression,  intonation  of  voice,  is 
certain  to  be  absorbed  and  unconsciously  or  purposely  repre- 
sented in  action.  Thus,  habits  of  language  become  universal- 
ized in  a  school  or  community,  a  certain  type  of  manner  becomes 
typical  of  a  school,  certain  methods  of  study  and  recitation  often 
characterize  a  system  of  schools.  In  one  place  recitations  are 
clear-cut,  intelligently  rendered,  while  in  another  school  they  are 
always  disconnected,  mumbled,  and  indistinct,  and  rendered 
with  no  apparent  pride.  Even  an  excellent  teacher  cannot 
model  things  to  his  own  liking  if  the  custom  does  not  sanction 
his  way.  A  splendid  teacher  once  failed  in  a  country  school 
because  he  insisted  on  having  the  boys  remove  their  hats  during 
recess  while  in  the  school-room.  Each  one  was  simply  imitat- 
ing a  prevailing  custom,  and  they  rebelled  against  any  deviation. 
Put  the  most  obstinate  of  those  boys  in  a  school  where  custom 
dictated  baring  the  head  indoors  and  see  how  quickly  he  would 
uncover,  with  never  a  word  of  opposition. 

Thus  through  imitation  the  child  is  to  absorb  many  of  the 
most  valuable  lessons  of  life.  All  the  elements  that  go  to  make 
up  what  we  term  "bearing"  or  "personality"  are  largely  prod- 
ucts of  imitation.  To  a  large  extent  one's  character  is  deter- 
mined imitatively  by  the  company  one  keeps.  It  is  frequently 
true  that  ideals  of  life  and  conduct  are  imitative  reflections  more 
than  particular  intellectual  acquisitions.  Feelings  are  especially 
contagious.  Attitudes  toward  life  and  its  various  problems  are 
taken  on  through  inoculation  when  the  reasons  therefor  are  not, 
at  all  apparent.  As  nearly  all  the  world's  great  wrong-doings, 
resulting  in  robbery,  embezzlement,  drunkenness,  poverty,  pau- 
perism, vice,  divorce,  murder,  suicide,  etc.,  result  from  a  distorted 
view  of  life,  duty,  and  happiness,  it  becomes  highly  important 
to  radiate  ideals  which  shall  counteract  the.  distorted  ones, 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    423 

Miinsterberg,  in  speaking  of  the  moral  aspect  of  suggestion, 
says:  "  We  have  no  mystic  power  by  which  our  will  simply  takes 
hold  of  the  other  man's  will,  but  we  inhibit  and  suppress  by 
influence  on  the  imagination  those  abnormal  impulses  which 
resist  the  sound  desires.  If  that  were  immoral,  we  should  have  to 
make  up  our  minds  that  all  education  and  training  were  per- 
verted with  such  immoral  elements.  Every  sound  respect  for 
authority  which  makes  a  child  willing  to  accept  the  advice  and 
maxims  of  his  elders  is  just  such  an  influence.  If  it  were  really 
a  moral  demand  that  the  will  be  left  to  its  own  resources,  and 
that  no  outside  influence  come  to  strengthen  its  power  or  remove 
its  hindrances  or  smooth  its  path,  then  we  ought  to  let  the  chil- 
dren grow  up  as  nature  created  them,  and  ought  not  to  try  to 
suppress  from  without  by  discipline  and  training,  by  love  and 
encouragement,  the  wilful  impulses  and  the  ugly  habits.  Even 
every  good  model  for  imitation  is  such  a  suggestive  influence  from 
without,  and  every  solemn  appeal  to  loyalty  and  friendship,  to 
patriotism  and  religion,  increases  the  degree  of  suggestibility. 
It  is  the  glory  of  life  that  the  suggestive  power  may  belong  to 
moral  values  instead  of  mere  pleasures,  but  it  is  not  the  aim  of 
life  to  remain  untouched  by  suggestion.  And  he  who  by  sug- 
gestion helps  the  weak  mind  to  overcome  obstacles  which  the 
strong  mind  can  overthrow  from  its  inborn  resources,  works  for 
the  good  of  the  individual  and  of  the  community  in  the  spirit  of 
truest  morality."  l 

Imitation  in  Adolescence. — At  no  period  of  life  is  imitation 
more  slavish  than  during  adolescence.  While  children  imitate 
much  without  reflection,  yet  they  care  little  for  public  opinion 
and  imitate  little  merely  to  receive  personal  approval.  But  the 
adolescent  is  so  completely  absorbed  in  securing  approval  of 
those  whose  opinion  he  courts  that  he  is  as  absolutely  enslaved 
as  if  indentured  or  hypnotized.  His  idealization  amounts  to 
apotheosis,  and  he  is  blind  and  deaf  to  all  else.  Popular  senti- 
ment rightfully  cried  out  against  the  fagging  system  in  the  great 
public  schools  of  England,  but  it  was  not  because  the  fags 

1  Miinsterberg,  Psychotherapy,  p.  378. 


424  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

wailed  or  bemoaned  their  hard  lot.  They  doubtless  considered 
their  menial  tasks  not  as  degrading,  but  on  the  contrary  as  the 
highest  honor.  What  boy  has  not  run  chasing  the  ball  for  the 
big  fellows  until  ready  to  drop  from  exhaustion?  How  many 
boys  have  not  been  beguiled  by  some  unscrupulous,  though,  to 
them,  fascinating  bully  into  doing  things  which  would  horrify 
their  parents,  and  later  themselves,  simply  to  meet  the  ap- 
proval of  their  hero  ?  Fagging  at  Rugby  was  censured  because 
of  the  debasing  effects  of  this  early  slavery  of  the  will,  which 
blighted  the  life  of  many  a  youth  who  was  too  frail-willed  to 
outgrow  the  temporary  hypnosis. 

College  government  largely  depends  upon  the  public  senti- 
ment espoused  by  the  students  themselves.  Faculty  rules  are 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  laws  enunciated  by  the 
leaders  of  the  classes.  High-school  pupils,  though  not  so  asser- 
tive, idealize  and  idolize  even  more  blindly.  What  is  more  sug- 
gestive of  the  cataleptic  trance  than  the  high-school  boy  in  love, 
especially  with  some  one  old  enough  to  be  his  mother  ?  Were 
youth  not  purblind  in  their  hero-worship,  what  boy  would  repeat 
the  deathly  sickness  of  his  first  smoke  simply  to  project  himself 
into  his  ideal  world  ?  What  college  freshman  would  don  a  fools- 
cap, a  dress-suit,  or  a  clown's  garb  and  labor  six  hours  rolling 
a  peanut  through  the  main  street  of  the  town,  or  do  the  thousand 
and  one  other  equally  inane  things  so  lacking  in  fun  for  adults 
that  even  the  street  laborers  will  not  turn  their  heads  to  look  ? 
We  should  not  bewail  such  actions  nor  pronounce  censure,  but 
we  should  understand  the  mental  attitude  and  be  sympathetic. 
These  are  perfectly  normal  phases  of  development,  peculiar  to 
those  ages,  and  will  be  moulted  in  due  time. 

Because  of  this  blind  and  excessive  fidelity  to  a  course  of  life 
once  assumed,  it  behooves  the  guardian  of  youth  to  provide  de- 
sirable copy  for  the  youth  to  imitate.  Many  a  youth's  aim  has 
been  low  through  life  simply  because  he  has  too  early  idolized 
unworthy  copy.  It  is  highly  important  that  boys  and  girls 
both  see  something  of  the  world  outside  their  own  circum- 
scribed community  before  developing  too  fixedly  their  ideals  of 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    425 

life  work,  and  especially  of  life  companions.  Savonarola  was 
saved  to  the  world  for  a  monumental  work  because  the  ignorant 
shepherdess  rejected  his  suit  when  he  was  a  callow  youth.  His 
wanderings  caused  by  his  fancied  dejection  gave  him  an  en- 
larged horizon  and  higher  ideals. 

Baldwin  has  emphasized  the  necessity  of  varied  copy,  saying: 
"Observers  should  report  with  especial  care  all  cases  of  un- 
usually close  relationship  between  children  in  youth,  such  as 
childish  favoritism,  'platonic  friendships,'  'chumming,'  in  school 
or  home,  etc.  We  have  in  these  facts — and  there  is  a  very  great 
variety  of  them — an  exaggeration  of  the  social  or  imitative 
tendency,  a  narrowing  down  of  the  personal  suggestive  sensi- 
bility to  a  peculiar  line  of  well-formed  influences.  It  has  never 
been  studied  by  writers  either  on  the  genesis  of  social  emotion  or 
on  the  practice  of  education.  To  be  sure,  teachers  are  alive  to 
the  pros  and  cons  of  allowing  children  and  students  to  room 
together;  but  it  is  with  a  view  to  the  possibility  of  direct  immoral 
or  unwholesome  contagion.  This  danger  is  certainly  real ;  but 
we,  as  psychological  observers,  and  above  all  as  teachers  and  lead- 
ers, of  our  children,  must  go  even  deeper  than  that.  Consider, 
for  example,  the  possible  influence  of  a  school  chum  and  room- 
mate upon  a  girl  in  her  teens;  for  this  is  only  an  evident  case  of 
what  all  isolated  children  are  subject  to.  A  sensitive  nature,  a 
girl  whose  very  life  is  a  branch  of  a  social  tree,  is  placed  in  a  new 
environment,  to  engraft  upon  the  members  of  her  mutilated 
self — her  very  personality;  it  is  nothing  less  than  that — utterly 
new  channels  of  supply.  The  only  safety  possible,  the  only  way 
to  conserve  the  lessons  of  her  past,  apart  from  the  veriest  chance, 
and  to  add  to  the  structure  of  her  present  character,  lies  in  se- 
curing for  her  the  greatest  possible  variety  of  social  influences. 
Instead  of  this  she  meets,  eats,  walks,  talks,  lies  down  at  night, 
and  rises  in  the  morning,  with  one  other  person,  a  'copy'  set 
before  her,  as  immature  in  all  likelihood  as  herself,  or,  if  not  so, 
yet  a  single  personality,  put  there  to  wrap  around  her  growing 
self  the  confining  cords  of  unassimilated  and  foreign  habit. 
Above  all  things,  fathers,  mothers,  teachers,  elders,  give  the 


426  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

children  room!  They  need  all  that  they  can  get,  and  their  per- 
sonalities will  grow  to  fill  it.  Give  them  plenty  of  companions, 
fill  their  lives  with  variety — variety  is  the  soul  of  originality,  and 
its  only  source  of  supply.  The  ethical  life  itself,  the  boy's,  the 
girl's  conscience,  is  born  in  the  stress  of  the  conflicts  of  sugges- 
tion, born  right  out  of  his  imitative  hesitations;  and  just  this  is 
the  analogy  which  he  must  assimilate  and  depend  upon  in  his 
own  conflicts  for  self-control  and  social  continence.  So  im- 
pressively true  is  this  from  the  human  point  of  view,  that  in  my 
opinion — formed,  it  is  true,  from  the  very  few  data  accessible 
on  such  points,  still  a  positive  opinion — children  should  never 
be  allowed,  after  infancy,  to  room  regularly  together;  special 
friendships  of  a  close,  exclusive  kind  should  be  discouraged  or 
broken  up,  except  when  under  the  immediate  eye  of  the  wise 
parent  or  guardian;  and  even  when  allowed,  these  relationships 
should,  in  all  cises,  be  used  to  entrain  the  sympathetic  and  moral 
sentiments  into -a  wider  field  of  social  exercise."  l 

Imitation  in  School  Government. — It  has  been  said  that  as 
-the  teacher  so  is  the  school,  and  no  doubt  Channing  was  right 
vhen  he  said  that  "  a  boy  compelled  for  six  hours  a  day  to  see  the 
countenance  and  hear  the  voice  of  a  fretful,  unkind,  hard  or  pas- 
sionate man  is  placed  in  a  school  of  vice."  But  I  am  inclined  to 
think  we  overrate  the  teacher's  influence,  and  underrate  the  in- 
fluence of  pupil  companions.  A  study  of  what  children  imitate 
most  has  revealed  to  me  that  children  imitate  other  children, 
usually  those  slightly  older  than  themselves,  more  than  they  do 
adults.  Let  a  few  children  become  interested  in  some  new 
game  or  play  and  it  usually  spreads  all  over  a  city.  From  time 
to  time  there  are  epidemics  of  playing  marbles,  tops,  circus, 
jack-o'-lanterns,  foot-ball,  base-ball,  shinny,  etc. 

The  particular  code  of  honor  in  a  school,  the  things  that  are 
tabooed,  and  the  general  moral  tone  of  the  school  also  depend 
far  more  upon  the  school  community  than  upon  the  teacher. 
We  send  our  boys  to  be  educated  by  the  school-master,  but  the 
school-boys  educate  them.  The  moral  tone  of  a  school  is  very 

1  Mental  Development,  p.  358. 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    427 

much  affected  by  imitation.  If  a,  teacher  can  secure  the  co- 
operation of  a  few  real  leaders,  it  does  much  more  to  change  the 
moral  tone  than  any  amount  of  lecturing  or  preaching.  Get  a 
few  leaders  started  and  the  effect  spreads  like  contagion.  The 
teacher  must  always  see  to  it  that  the  leaders,  those  whose 
opinion  is  deemed  important,  are  on  her  side.  Public  opinion  is 
largely  the  opinion  of  leaders.  This  is  true  in  politics,  and 
equally  true  in  school  circles.  This  public  opinion  is  a  most 
powerful  shibboleth.  Let  the  teacher  keep  the  leaders  sympa- 
thetic. She  can  then  run  their  opinions  into  any  desired  mould. 
With  the  leaders  enlisted  on  her  side  and  the  cause  of  right, 
mere  school  government  is  an  easy  affair.  The  hearts  of  the 
multitude  cannot  be  entirely  changed  all  at  once.  Other  coun- 
ter influences  may  be  strong,  but  when  once  the  wide-spread 
influence  of  imitation  is  recognized;  when  it  is  comprehended 
that  we  are  to  imitate  whether  we  will  or  not,  theie  will  be  much 
more  attention  paid  to  the  "copy"  that  is  placed  or  allowed 
before  children. 

It  is  not  a  new  thing  for  solicitous  parents  to  try  to  keep  ba 
and  vicious  companions  away  from  their  children,  but  they  usu 
ally  think  little  of  the  positive  effects  of  good  copy.     The  right 
kind  of  playmates  for  a  child  in  its  impressionable  years  may 
save  many  school  bills,  and  even  doctor's  bills.     It  takes  years 
and  many  school-masters  to  teach  what  ought  to  have  been 
gained  silently,  surely,  unthinkingly,  through  imitation  of  worthy 
associates,  and  to  help  unlearn  the  undesirable  things  learned 
by  the  same  inevitable,  imitative  process  from  vicious  compan- 
ions. 

Take,  for  example,  the  code  with  respect  to  "  tattling."  While 
any  fair-minded  person  would  denounce  that  kind  of  tattling 
which  informs  for  the  selfish  satisfaction  of  getting  the  other 
fellow  punished,  yet  who  cannot  see  that  not  to  inform  against 
an  enemy  to  common  welfare  is  to  be  a  silent  partner  to  the 
crime  ?  To  be  an  informer  against  all  enemies  of  the  public  is 
one  of  the  most  fundamental  civic  virtues.  Yet  a  foolish  mis- 
interpretation of  the  literal  expression  has  become  a  false  code 


428  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

of  honor,  fostered  in  school  and  perpetuated  in  civic  life.  How 
many  shrink  from  attempting  to  right  public  abuses  because  the 
injury  has  not  become  so  personal  as  to  be  felt !  The  public  busi- 
ness becomes  no  part  of  any  individual's  business.  As  in  school 
they  felt  it  to  be  the  teacher's  business  to  right  evils,  they  now 
turn  it  entirely  over  to  the  police,  and  then  grumble  at  the  cor- 
ruption in  public  affairs.  One  can  be  a  flagrant  sinner  "by 
minding  his  own  business."  There  are  sins  of  omission  as  well 
as  of  commission.  Our  greatest  civic  sin  is  neglect  of  the  public 
weal.  While  we  fold  our  hands,  stop  our  ears,  and  blind  our 
eyes  the  council  barters  away  the  franchise,  the  sheriff  pockets 
his  usurious  fees,  the  tax-collector  keeps  all  that  sticks  to  his 
fingers,  the  money  kings  hide  their  taxable  property,  the  corpo- 
rations swindle  the  patient  public,,  and  the  patent-medicine 
man  saps  the  life  and  vigor  from  the  commonwealth.  We 
know  all  these  things  are  going  on,  but  we  believe  in  "mind- 
ing our  own  business."  Children  must  be  taught  in  school 
that  a  rebel  against  the  welfare  of  the  school  is  a  public  male- 
factor. 

Nearly  all  the  rules,  regulations,  and  machinery  of  govern- 
ment in  school  are,  in  point  of  importance  and  efficiency,  of 
minor  potency  when  compared  with  the  public  opinion  of  the 
school.  The  school  becomes  what  pupils  sanction.  The  teacher 
who  inspires  high  ideals  of  the  relations  the  pupils  should  bear 
toward  the  school  will  have  no  difficulty  in  government.  Many 
schools,  regrettably,  have  never  glimpsed  true  ideals  of  these  re- 
lations, because  the  narrow  teachers  themselves  have  not  com- 
prehended them.  The  teacher  who  comports  himself  as  a  po- 
liceman and  detective  is  surely  imitated  in  his  ideals,  and  usually 
plays  a  sorry  game. 

We  hear,  nowadays,  much  about  self-government  in  schools. 
The  tendency  is  to  evolve  a  complex  system  of  machinery 
whereby  the  pupils  may  themselves  enact  and  execute  laws  and 
even  punish  offenders  for  their  infraction.  No  system  of  school 
governmental  machinery  of  itself,  however,  can  secure  self-gov- 
ernment. The  only  secret  worth  striving  to  discover  is  that  of  sc- 


IMITATION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION    429 

curing  a  feeling  of  mutual  ownership  of  the  school.  That  secured, 
the  machinery  is  largely  rendered  unnecessary.  Pupils  are  too 
apt  to  feel  no  sense  of  partnership  in  the  school,  and  no  sense  of 
responsibility  for  its  good  name.  School  public  opinion  has 
thrown  the  whole  responsibility  upon  the  teachers,  and  instead  of 
feeling  happy  in  the  success  of  the  school,  the  pupils  have  even 
often  felt  a  secret  delight  in  the  failure  of  what  is  to  them  some 
one  else's  affair.  False  codes  of  honor  are  by  no  means  un- 
common. Many  a  boy  who  would  sooner  cut  off  his  right  hand 
than  inform  the  authorities  of  offences  against  their  mutual  wel- 
fare, would  not  hesitate  to  crib  from  his  neighbors  on  examina- 
tion. No  teacher  can  abolish  cribbing,  hazing,  or  bullying  by 
an  edict,  but  once  let  him  create  a  public  opinion  against  it, 
and  woe  to  the  offender.  Even  little  children  will  often  com- 
mit flagrant  disobedience  of  parents'  commands  rather  than 
disregard  the  mandates  of  the  public  opinion  of  their  own 
circle. 

Social  Responsibilities  Because  of  Imitation. — The  laws  of 
imitation  place  great  responsibilities  upon  every  individual  in 
society.  Every  one,  unless  isolated  even  more  than  Robinson 
Crusoe,  is  a  part  of  somebody's  environment.  Every  action  has 
some  influence  upon  others  as  well  as  upon  one's  self.  Thus  is 
each  one  his  brother's  keeper.  When  we  come  to  understand 
the  influence  of  others  upon  us,  the  influence  other  children 
exert  upon  our  children,  we  shall  then  be  more  solicitous  to 
secure  only  wholesome,  elevating  surroundings  for  ourselves 
and  our  children.  We  shall  be  almost  as  deeply  concerned  about 
educating  our  neighbor's  children  properly  as  we  are  about  our 
own,  for  in  the  widest  sense  we  cannot  educate  a  given  indi- 
vidual properly  without  suitable  environment.  Every  man  is  a 
product  of  the  time  in  which  he  lives.  A  great  statesman  can- 
not be  produced  without  a  great  state.  A  great  scholar  rarely 
lives  in  an  unscholarly  time  or  place.  Therefore  every  parent 
who  wishes  to  educate  his  children  in  intellectuality,  morality, 
and  virtue  must  seek  those  conditions  as  an  environment.  No 
one  who  desires  to  educate  his  children  properly,  moves  to  the 


43®  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

slums;  no,  he  moves  where  culture  is  highest,  not  because  good 
teachers  are  not  obtainable  for  the  slum  district,  but  because  oi 
all  the  other  contributory  factors.  While  many  seek  these  con- 
ditions, few  realize  their  duty  in  creating  them. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
SENSORY  EDUCATION 

The  Doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas. — "Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod 
non  prius  fuerit  in  sensu."  Wise  words  of  Comenius  written 
so  long  ago,  but  so  tardily  understood  by  the  world!  The 
psychological  doctrine  maintaining  that  all  ideas  are  innate, 
which  was  held  by  most  people  down  to  the  time  of  John  Locke 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  led  to  its  pedagogical  corollary,  that 
the  purpose  of  education  is  not  to  supply  ideas  at  all,  but  merely 
to  draw  out  those  already  possessed  by  the  individual.  We 
read  Socrates's  proclamation  that  the  science  of  teaching  is  a 
science  of  maieutics,  or  the  science  of  giving  birth  to  ideas. 
This  view  of  the  origin  of  ideas  led  men  to  seek  knowledge  of  all 
things  within  themselves,  and  the  final  tribunal  of  the  validity  of 
all  knowledge  was  the  reason.  Hence  the  Middle  Age  scholas- 
ticism was  characterized  by  acuity  of  dialectical,  deductive  rea- 
soning and  extreme  deference  to  authority.  No  experimental  in- 
vestigation was  carried  on,  nature  was  not  interrogated  to  give 
up  her  secrets,  but  premises,  often  fantastic,  absurd,  untrue, 
were  set  up,  and  conclusions  deduced  therefrom.  The  schoolmen 
spun  exceedingly  delicate  webs  of  beautiful  logic,  but  only  to 
become  hopelessly  entangled  in  retarding,  benighting  veils  of 
ignorance,  superstition,  and  misdeed.  Then  followed  the  Renais- 
sance, which  was  characterized  by  the  assertion  of  individual, 
spiritual  independence,  and  the  severance  of  bonds  of  authority. 
Post-Renaissance  teachers  turned  to  the  study  of  nature,  but 
they  studied  it  by  proxy,  i.  e.,  through  the  medium  of  books. 
They  have  been  denominated  in  the  history  of  education  as  verbal 
realists.  Unfortunately,  the  verbal  realists  are  not  all  dead  yet. 
Verbal  realists  of  the  wordiest  kind  still  exist,  who,  for  example, 

431 


432  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

teach  geography  as  a  matter  of  definitions  and  book  descriptions, 
who  teach  physics  without  laboratory  and  experiment,  who  read 
about  chemical  action  instead  of  producing  it  and  observing  it, 
who  teach  civil  government  by  requiring  pupils  to  memorize  the 
Constitution  verbatim  and  never  to  see  a  concrete  illustration  of 
its  workings. 

Change  from  Utilitarian  to  Disciplinary  Views. — Subject-mat- 
ter in  early  schools  was  chosen  because  of  its  immediate  utility 
in  furthering  the  ecclesiastical  ideal.  With  the  Revival  of  Learn- 
ing a  new  ideal  appeared  along  with  the  old.  The  subjects 
which  had  been  regarded  as  instruments  then  came  to  be  con- 
sidered as  the  sole  ends  of  instruction.  A  blind  worship  of  an- 
tiquity developed  a  fetichism  for  the  means  of  ancient  culture  and 
expression.  Dittes  writes  that  "education  in  the  form  that  it 
had  assumed  in  the  sixteenth  century,  could  not  furnish  a  com- 
plete human  culture.  In  the  higher  institutions,  and  even  in  the 
wretched  town  schools,  Latin  was  the  Moloch  to  which  count- 
less minds  fell  an  offering,  in  return  for  the  blessing  granted  to 
a  few.  A  dead  knowledge  of  words  took  the  place  of  a  living 
knowledge  of  things.  Latin  school-books  supplanted  the  book 
of  nature,  the  book  of  life,  the  book  of  mankind.  And  in  the* 
popular  schools  youthful  minds  were  tortured  over  the  spelling- 
book  and  catechism.  The  method  of  teaching  was  almost 
everywhere,  in  the  primary  as  well  as  in  the  higher  schools,  a 
mechanical  and  compulsory  drill  in  unintelligible  formulas;  the 
pupils  were  obliged  to  learn,  but  they  were  not  educated  to  see 
and  hear,  to  think  and  prove,  and  were  not  led  to  a  true  inde- 
pendence and  personal  perfection." 

Beginnings  of  Realism. — Painter  has  aptly  summarized  the 
beginnings  of  the  new  movement  in  the  following  words:1  "By 
the  side  of  narrow  theological  and  humanistic  tendencies,  there 
was  developed  a  liberal  progressive  spirit,  in  which  lay  the  hope 
of  the  future.  It  freed  itself  from  traditional  opinions,  and 
pushed  its  investigations  everywhere  in  search  of  new  truth.  In 
England  Bacon  set  forth  his  inductive  method,  by  which  he 

1  History  of  Education,  p.  173. 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  433 

gave  a,n  immense  impulse  to  the  study  of  nature;  in  France 
Descartes  laid  a  solid  foundation  for  intellectual  science;  and  in 
Germany  Leibnitz  quickly  reached  the  bound  and  farthest  limit 
of  human  wisdom,  to  overleap  that  line  and  push  onward  into 
regions  hitherto  unexplored,  and  dwell  among  yet  undiscov- 
ered truths.  Great  progress  was  made  in  the  natural  sciences. 
Galileo  invented  the  telescope,  and  discovered  the  moons  of  Ju- 
piter. Newton  discovered  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  explained 
the  theory  of  colors.  Harvey  found  out  the  circulation  of  the 
blood.  Torricelli  invented  the  barometer,  Guericke  the  air- 
pump,  Napier  logarithms.  Pascal  ascertained  that  the  air  has 
weight,  and  Roemer  measured  the  velocity  of  light.  Kepler 
announced  the  laws  of  planetary  motion.  Louis  XIV  estab- 
lished the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  and  Charles  II  the 
Royal  Society  of  England." 

Karl  Schmidt  wrote  of  the  time:  "Books,  words  had  been  the 
subjects  of  instruction  during  the  period  of  abstract  theological 
education.  The  knowledge  of  things  was  wanting.  Instead 
of  the  things  themselves,  words  about  the  things  were  taught — 
and  these  taken  from  the  books  of  the  'ancients'  about  stars, 
the  forces  of  nature,  stones,  plants,  animals — astronomy  without 
observations,  anatomy  without  dissection  of  the  human  body, 
physics  without  experiments,  etc.  Then  appeared  in  the  most 
different  countries  of  Europe  an  intellectual  league  of  men  who 
made  it  their  work  to  turn  away  from  dead  words  to  living 
nature,  and  from  mechanical  to  organic  instruction.  They 
were,  indeed,  only  preachers  in  the  wilderness,  but  they  were 
the  pioneers  of  a  new  age." 

Rabelais  (1483-1553)  introduced  the  first  note  of  realism  in 
his  pedagogical  writings  as  opposed  to  the  formalism  of  scholas- 
ticism. The  great  Erasmus  had  even  deemed  it  nonsense  to 
wash  more  than  once  a  day.  But  Rabelais,  a  physician,  urged 
physical  education  and  enjoined  personal  hygiene.  An  active 
life  in  the  open  air  is  the  best  antidote  to  paleness  from  book 
work.  Lessons  are  to  be  followed  by  play.  Of  his  hypotheti- 
cal ideal  pupil,  Gargantua,  he  said:  "He  exercises  his  body  just 


434  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

as  vigorously  as  he  had  before  exercised  his  mind."  Tennis, 
ball,  riding,  wrestling,  swimming,  and  all  known  recreative 
exercises  entered  into  the  desired  educational  activities.  He  also 
wished  to  have  his  pupil  secure  his  knowledge  through  personal 
observation  and  experience.  The  Georgics  of  Vergil  are  to  be 
read  while  in  the  meadows  and  woods.  Excursions  are  to  be 
made,  botany  and  geology  are  to  be  studied  while  "passing 
through  meadows  or  other  grassy  places,  observing  trees  and 
plants,  comparing  them  with  ancient  books  where  they  are  de- 
scribed .  .  .  and  taking  handfuls  of  them  home." 

Compayre,  commenting  upon  Gargantua's  training,  writes:1 
"There  are  but  few  didactic  lessons:  intuitive  instruction,  given 
in  the  presence  of  the  objects  themselves,  such  is  the  method  of 
Rabelais.  It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  he  sends  his  pupil  to  visit 
the  stores  of  the  silversmiths,  the  foundries,  the  alchemists' 
laboratories,  and  shops  of  all  kinds — real  scientific  excursions 
such  as  are  in  vogue  to-day."  Montaigne  joined  in  the  reac- 
tion against  empty  scholasticism.  He  cared  little  whether  the 
pupil  learned  to  write  in  Latin.  "If  his  soul  be  not  put  into 
better  rhythm,  if  the  judgment  be  not  better  settled,  I  would 
rather  have  him  spend  his  time  at  tennis."  2  He  argued  that 
things  should  precede  words,  saying:  "Let  our  pupil  be  pro- 
vided with  things;  words  will  follow  only  too  fast."  3 

Sir  Francis  Bacon  (1561-1626)  stands  out  pre-eminently 
among  the  pioneer  exponents  of  the  new  doctrine  of  sense  realism 
in  education.  The  formulator  of  a  new  method,  that  of  induc- 
tion, he  made  men  aware  of  an  instrument  of  thinking  of  which 
they  had  not  been  conscious.  Bound  down  to  the  methods  of 
deduction  as  men  had  been  for  centuries,  they  had  helplessly  re- 
lied upon  authority  and  tradition  for  all  the  knowledge  handed 
down  to  them.  During  the  period  of  scholasticism  investiga- 
tion proceeded  only  as  necromancy,  astrology,  or  alchemy,  and 
was  generally  branded  as  a  black  art.  Many  like  Roger  Bacon, 
Bruno,  Kepler,  and  Galileo  paid  dearly  for  their  temerity  in 

1  The  History  of  Pedagogy,  p.  97. 

2  Book  I,  chap.  24.  3  Book  I,  chap.  25. 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  435 

dabbling  with  the  secrets  of  nature.  Bacon's  works  were  burnt, 
Kepler  persecuted,  Galileo  forced  to  retract,  and  Bruno  im- 
prisoned, excommunicated,  and  finally  burnt  at  the  stake. 
Bacon  holds  up  to  ridicule  the  scholastic  methods  whereby 
men,  "out  of  no  quantity  of  matter,  and  infinite  agitation  of  wit, 
spin  cob-webs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the  fineness  of  thread 
and  work,  but  of  no  substance  or  profit."  He  teaches  the  ne- 
cessity for  investigation,  experiment,  and  individual  verification 
of  data.  Man  is  implored  to  use  his  eyes,  his  ears,  all  his  senses, 
in  exploring  the  unknown  universe.  All  study  is  to  be  made 
personal,  concrete,  and  objective. 

Comenius  (1592-1670)  pondered  and  expounded  Bacon's 
inductive  philosophy,  and  in  addition  seized  the  opportune 
moment  for  developing  the  educational  psychology  of  sense 
realism  which  Bacon  had  only  hinted  at.  In  fact,  Bacon  had 
been  interested  only  secondarily  in  educative  processes  but  pri- 
marily in  securing  practical  results.  Comenius  previses  many  of 
the  most  important  biological  laws  of  development  and  seeks 
to  secure  the  natural  unfoldment  of  the  powers,  bodily  and 
mental,  of  the  child.  He  is  the  first  great  sense  realist,  recog- 
nizing the  function  of  the  senses  in  revealing  and  reporting  the 
world  to  the  mind.  He  says:  "It  is  certain  that  there  is  nothing 
in  the  understanding  that  was  not  first  in  the  senses,  and  con- 
sequently, it  is  to  lay  the  foundation  of  all  wisdom,  of  all  elo- 
quence, and  of  all  good  and  prudent  conduct,  carefully  to  train 
the  senses  to  note  with  accuracy  the  differences  between  natural 
objects.  .  .  .  We  must  offer  to  the  young,  not  the  shadows 
of  things,  but  the  things  themselves,  which  impress  the  senses  and 
the  imagination.  Instruction  should  commence  with  a  real  ob- 
servation of  things,  and  not  with  a  verbal  description  of  them. 
...  In  the  place  of  dead  books,  why  should  we  not  open  the 
living  book  of  nature?  .  .  .  To  instruct  the  young  is  not  to 
beat  into  them  by  repetition  a  mass  of  words,  phrases,  sentences, 
and  opinions  gathered  out  of  authors;  but  it  is  to  open  their 
understanding  through  things.  ..."  Comenius  gave  to  the 
world  the  first  illustrated  text-book,  the  Orbis  Sensualism  Pictus. 


436  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

It  was  a  practical  attempt  to  apply  his  new  doctrine.  The  book 
achieved  great  popularity,  being  translated  into  every  civilized 
language,  and  served  as  a  model  for  innumerable  imitations.  He 
urged  the  importance  of  physical  training.  He  also  maintained 
that  "the  exact  order  of  instruction  must  be  borrowed  from 
nature"  and  recognized  that  plasticity  is  greatest  in  childhood. 
He  wrote:  "A  man  can  most  easily  be  formed  in  early  youth, 
and  cannot  be  formed  properly  except  at  this  age." 

Meaning  of  the  Renaissance  for  Education. — The  breaking 
away  from  the  enthralling  methods  of  scholasticism  is  what  the 
Renaissance  stands  for.  The  school  of  naturalists  led  by  such 
men  as  Roger  Bacon,  Dante,  Petrarch,  Luther,  Rabelais,  Mon- 
taigne, Rousseau,  Lord  Bacon,  and  Locke,  preached  a  new  doc- 
trine of  individual  intellectual  liberty.  Investigation  instead  of 
blind  acceptance  of  authority  became  permissible.  Facts  were 
accumulated,  their  relations  studied,  and  the  conclusions  tested 
by  further  investigation.  With  this  new  method  science  was 
ushered  in.  Everything  in  science  that  was  known  previous  to 
the  Middle  Ages  could  be  blotted  out  and  the  world  would  in  no 
wise  suffer.  With  the  spread  of  Comenius's  new  doctrine  that 
all  knowledge  takes  its  rise  in  the  senses,  new  methods  of  teach- 
ing came  as  a  necessary  corollary.  Objective  and  concrete 
teaching  were  a  necessary  consequence.  No  knowledge  could 
be  real  which  had  not  been  gained  at  first  hand.  Words  mean 
nothing  unless  they  are  the  symbols  of  realities.  Pursuant  to 
this  newer  doctrine  we  have  constructed  laboratories,  gathered 
museums,  developed  pictorial  representation,  encouraged  ex- 
cursions, counselled  personal  observation,  and  in  multitudes  of 
ways  have  tried  to  make  knowledge  real.  To  say  that  all 
teachers  understand  this  and  heed  its  mandates  would  be  wide 
of  the  mark.  Thousands  are  in  the  Middle  Ages  professionally, 
but  the  times  are  hopeful. 

Importance  of  Sense-Perceptions. — Every  one  now  readily  ad- 
mits that  sensory  training  is  desirable  as  a  means  of  education. 
There  is,  however,  much  ignorance  as  to  the  real  meaning  of  the 
process,  and  of  the  means  to  be  employed  in  securing  sensory 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  437 

training.  There  are  many  who  still  teach  as  if  all  ideas  were 
innate  and  the  only  function  of  teaching  were  to  bring  these  ideas 
to  consciousness  through  the  medium  of  words.  Little  do  they 
seem  to  realize  that  the  child's  whole  mental  life  is  determined 
and  circumscribed  by  the  range  of  his  sensory  experiences. 
Without  these  perceptions  not  only  would  the  lower  powers  of 
the  mind  be  lacking,  but  the  growth  of  the  higher  powers,  like 
judgment,  reason,  and  volition,  would  be  impossible.  As  Dexter 
and  Garlick  have  asserted,1  "Accurate  sense-perceptions  are  the 
best  and  indeed  the  only  preliminaries  to  accurate  reasoning. 
.  .  .  The  teacher  who  tries  to  train  the  powers  of  judgment 
and  reasoning  upon  incomplete  and  inaccurate  sense-percep- 
tions is  like  the  man  who  built  his  house  upon  the  sand.  The 
wise  teacher  endeavors  to  build  up  the  intellectual  edifice  upon 
the  rock  of  well-ordered  and  carefully  trained  sense-percepts." 

To  show  strikingly  how  important  the  education  of  a  sense  is, 
we  may  refer  to  those  cases  where  persons  have  been  blind  and 
have  later  received  the  power  of  sight  through  an  operation.  A 
boy  who  had  thus  been  made  to  see  was  shown  his  pet  cat  with 
which  he  was  so  familiar.  He  stared  at  it  in  amazement  with- 
out being  able  to  comprehend.  Finally  he  took  hold  of  the  cat 
and  felt  her  all  over  while  looking  at  her.  He  gained  a  new 
idea  entirely,  and  said,  "Now,  kitty,  after  this  I  shall  be  able 
to  know  you  when  I  see  you."  Ziehen  gives  an  illustration  which 
shows  that  modes  of  perceiving  become  so  persistent  that  it  may 
even  be  impossible  to  establish  the  mode  "natural"  to  normal 
persons.  He  writes:2  "A  certain  individual,  who  had  been 
born  blind,  was  unable  to  form  any  idea  of  a  square,  even  upon 
seeing  it  after  his  sight  had  been  restored  by  an  operation,  until 
he  began  to  perceive  a  sensation  in  the  tips  of  his  ringers  as 
though  he  were  really  engaged  in  touching  the  object  at  which  he 
was  looking.  The  patient  had  constant  recourse  to  his  sense 
of  touch,  just  as  the  normal  man  resorts  to  his  sense  of  sight  in 
the  recognition  of  objects." 

'.  Psychology  in  the  Schoolroom,  p.  99. 

3  Introduction  to  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  87. 


438  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

A  similar  case  has  been  reported  by  Dr.  Miner  from  the 
psychological  laboratory  of  the  State  University  of  Iowa.  It  is 
probably  the  best  study  on  record  of  such  cases,  from  the  psy- 
chological point  of  view.  The  subject,  Miss  W.,  had  complete 
cataracts  in  both  eyes,  and  was  reported  as  blind  from  birth. 
Both  cataracts  were  removed  by  Dr.  L.  W.  Dean,  professor  of 
opthalmology  in  the  University  of  Iowa.  At  the  time  of  the 
operation  she  was  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and  had  received  the 
high-school  education  in  the  State  School  for  the  Blind.  Dr. 
Miner's  investigations  were  conducted  nearly  three  years  after 
sight  was  restored  to  the  right  eye,  and  nearly  two  years  after  the 
operation  upon  the  left  eye.  Among  other  tests,  Dr.  Miner  made 
a  very  careful  study  of  her  stock  of  visual  knowledge,  and  her 
mode  of  acquiring  visual  ideas.  Even  after  the  considerable 
time  that  had  elapsed  since  she  began  to  acquire  ideas  by  sight, 
she  was  found  very  deficient  in  this  respect.  In  Dr.  Miner's 
words,  "Miss  W.  was  still  completely  naive  to  many  of  the 
normal  experiences  of  an  adult.  She  had  never  looked  through 
a  stereoscope,  opera-glass,  field-glass,  or  telescope.  She  had 
never  used  both  eyes  together  enough  to  find  out  any  differences 
between  monocular  and  binocular  vision.  She  had  not  yet 
learned  to  translate  her  visual  images  into  terms  of  movement 
with  any  degree  of  success,  except  in  case  of  the  most  simple 
forms  and  numbers,  or  with  common  objects  of  her  previous 
touch  experience.  She  knew  practically  nothing  about  draw- 
ings or  pictures.  She  had  not  even  learned  to  identify  people 
by  their  faces;  those  whom  she  thought  she  knew  by  their 
features  were  her  mother,  father,  sister,  a  teacher  at  the  school, 
and  the  nurse  who  was  with  her  during  the  operation.  Although 
I  worked  with  her  every  day  for  over  a  month,  and  she  saw  Dr. 
Dean  often,  I  believe  she  cannot  recognize  either  of  us  by 
sight."  She  recognized  persons  mainly  by  the  sound  of  the 
voice.  She  possessed  an  "all-powerful  impulse  to  explain  any- 
thing new  by  referring  it  at  once  to  the  language  of  her  sight- 
less experience."  In  counting  the  sides  of  a  hexagon,  for  ex- 
ample, she  used  some  sort  of  muscular  movement  to  register 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  439 

each  number.  "She  would  tap  with  her  fingers  or  foot,  press 
her  teeth  together,  or  her  tongue  against  her  teeth,  move  her 
head,  regulate  her  breathing,  or  even  slightly  wink  at  each 
corner,  in  order  to  register  that  as  number  one  before  passing 
to  the  next."  For  a  long  time  shadows  seemed  like  real  objects 
to  her,  and  she  often  walked  around  them.  Because  she  could 
not  judge  distances  accurately,  she  frequently  upset  dishes  on 
the  table.  In  learning  through  reading  or  hearing,  she  re- 
peated everything  to  herself,  translating  everything  into  motor 
terms.1 

If  a  child  is  blind  from  birth  it  is  therefore  deprived  of  a  class 
of  experiences  which  can  never  be  acquired  through  any  other 
means.  Stop  the  ears  of  the  same  child  and  another  gateway 
of  the  soul  is  closed.  Suppose  the  same  child  is  deprived  of  the 
senses  of  taste,  of  smell,  of  temperature,  of  weight,  of  direction, 
of  touch — and  all  the  rest.  What  happens?  All  of  the  gate- 
ways to  the  soul  are  closed  and  the  child  grows  up  mindless — 
an  idiot.  Each  sense  supplies  the  mind  with  information  of 
its  own  peculiar  sort.  The  eye  is  fitted  to  respond  to  waves  of 
light,  the  ear  to  waves  of  sound,  and  no  other  part  of  the  body 
can  act  as  a  substitute.  The  eye  is  dead  to  waves  of  sound,  the 
ear  to  light,  and  the  sense  of  touch  does  not  respond  to  odors. 
One  who  is  deprived  of  a  single  sense,  or  who  is  defective  in  that 
sense,  is  caused  to  limp  mentally  just  as  surely  as  one  must  limp 
when  a  leg  is  amputated.  Helen  Keller  has  never  known  color 
as  those  of  us  who  see  it  know  it.  She  knows  nothing  of  the 
melodies  of  sounds  in  nature  as  we  who  hear  know  of  them.  It 
should  be  remembered,  also,  that  exercise  of  the  senses  must  be 
secured  at  the  right  time.  If  early  life  passes  without  ample 
opportunity  for  sensory  exercise,  arrested  development  ensues, 
almost  as  disastrous  as  if  the  centres  had  been  destroyed. 

Meaning  of  Sensory  Training. — By  training  a  sense,  we  mean 
acquiring  a  rich  fund  of  experiences  through  that  sense,  thus  en- 
abling one  to  react  to  a  great  variety  of  stimuli  which  come  to 

•Miner,  J.  B.,  "A  Case  of  Vision  Acquired  in  Adult  Life,"  Psychological 
Review,  Monograph  Supplement,  March,  1905. 


440  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

that  sense.  An  untrained  sense  is  one  which  reacts  to  only  a 
few  of  the  stimuli  which  might  awaken  it.  Images  of  flowers,  of 
the  rainbow,  of  works  of  art,  strike  the  retina  of  the  dog,  but 
are  unseen  in  any  real  sense;  the  strains  of  Beethoven's  sonatas 
strike  the  untrained  ear  of  the  child  and  awaken  no  responsive 
chords;  the  unlettered  man  views  a  page  of  print  and  sees  only 
black  pothooks  and  crooks;  each  one  of  us  goes  about  the  world 
blind,  deaf,  and  anaesthetic  to  manifold  stimuli  from  light, 
sound,  touch,  taste,  and  smell.  The  end  organs  of  sense  may 
be  perfect,  the  sensorium  in  the  best  of  health,  the  nerve  con- 
nections unimpaired,  yet  we  are  blind  as  bats  and  deaf  as  adders 
to  myriads  of  stimuli.  One  may  even  be  an  expert  in  certain 
realms  of  sight,  sound,  or  touch  and  yet  be  almost  idiotic  in 
other  realms  of  sight,  sound,  or  touch.  For  example,  the  trained 
telegrapher's  ear  may  be  without  the  slightest  appreciation  of 
musical  harmonies,  the  hawk-eyed  Indian  looks  with  dull 
psychic  vision  upon  the  printed  page,  while  a  proof-reader  might 
readily  get  lost  in  woods  where  the  Indian  would  note  and  re- 
member every  rock,  tree,  and  pathway.  The  shrewd  agricult- 
urist who  sees  the  fine  points  in  a  Percheron,  a  Durham,  or 
a  corn-field,  may  be  oblivious  to  the  connoisseur's  criteria  of 
a  classical  painting.  Dr.  Hinsdale  has  said:  "The  Indian's 
boasted  faculty  is  limited  to  his  native  environment;  introduced 
into  Cheapside  or  the  Strand,  he  sees  nothing  compared  with 
Sam  Weller  or  one  of  Fagin's  pupils." 

The  point  is,  that  training  the  senses  means  acquiring  rich 
funds  of  experience  through  the  senses  in  order  to  interpret 
still  larger  funds  of  experience  by  means  of  the  knowledge  pre- 
viously acquired  through  personal  experience.  The  botanist 
has  well-trained  eyes  for  things  botanical,  the  geologist  for  things 
geological,  the  grammarian  for  fine  points  in  grammar,  and  the 
milliner  for  spring  fashions.  It  is  quite  possible  that  a  given 
individual  may  have  all  his  senses  keen,  and  be  alert  in  a  great 
variety  of  directions.  That  is  an  ideal  development.  Well- 
trained  senses  mean  a  mind  richly  supplied  with  apperceptive 
material  gained  from  a  variety  of  objects,  received  through  a 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  441 

variety  of  stimuli.  Hence  ,the  purpose  of  sense-training  should 
be,  first,  to  utilize  the  senses  in  gaining  first-hand  experiences 
from  the  world  of  objects  about  us;  and  second,  to  gain  this 
knowledge  in  as  many  ways  as  possible.  The  one  who  hears 
music  only  gets  a  limited  experience.  The  one  who  sees  the 
printed  notes  and  observes  the  musician  and  the  instrument  gets 
added  perceptions;  the  one  who  actually  produces  the  same 
music  gets  decidedly  more  and  better  perceptions  than  the  other 
two.  Musical  knowledge  is  indeed  imperfect  until  the  last  type 
of  experience  is  added  to  the  others. 

In  considering  sensory  training,  the  function  of  the  nervous 
system,  especially  the  brain,  must  not  be  forgotten.  Sight, 
hearing,  touch,  and  all  the  rest  would  be  impossible  without  the 
cerebral  cortex.  Sever  the  optic  nerve  and  we  have  a  world  of 
darkness;  destroy  the  auditory  nerve  and  all  is  hushed  and 
silent  as  the  tomb.  The  end  organs  may  be  perfect,  the  con- 
ducting or  afferent  nerves  unharmed,  but  if  the  specialized 
central  areas  are  functionless  the  signs  given  through  the  end 
organs  of  sense  remain  untranslated.  Halleck  says1  that 
"psychic  blindness  is  lack  of  recognition  of  an  object  that  is 
actually  seen.  Thus,  when  the  brain  of  a  frog  or  a  pigeon  is 
removed,  the  animal  may  still  see  objects  and  avoid  them  when 
it  moves,  but  the  fact  that  such  a  pigeon  has  no  fear  of  a  cat  or 
any  other  object  shows  that  psychic  blindness  exists.  Objects 
are  seen,  but  not  recognized.  Sensorial  blindness  exists  when 
no  sensation  from  light  is  experienced.  A  Scotchman  met  with 
an  accident  that  brought  on  him  psychic  blindness.  He  saw 
physically  as  well  as  ever,  but  he  could  not  interpret  what  he 
saw.  He  would  look  at  the  most  familiar  objects  and  be  utterly 
unable  to  recognize  them.  He  would  gaze  at  his  New  Testa- 
ment without  knowing  what  the  object  was  until  he  ran  his 
hand  over  the  smooth  cover,  when  he  immediately  recognized  it. 
When  a  piece  of  detached  bone,  pressing  on  the  centre  for  vision 
in  his  brain,  was  removed,  he  recovered  his  power  of  mentally 
interpreting  what  he  saw." 

1  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,  p.  17. 


442  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Real  Beginnings  of  Sense  Training. — Sensory  training  begins 
at  birth,  and  should  be  kept  up  through  life.  We  should  not  pro- 
ceed as  though  we  were  going  to  exercise  until  reaching  a  stand- 
ard of  cultivation,  and  then  expect  the  same  proficiency  in  the 
given  sense  for  all  kinds  of  objective  material.  That  is,  there  is 
no  general  training  which  will  secure  equal  development  for  all 
kinds  of  special  knowledge.  The  complete  meaning  of  this  will 
be  discussed  under  the  topic  of  Formal  Discipline.  The  aim 
should  be  rather  to  use  the  sense  to  the  best  advantage  as  a  means 
of  knowledge-getting.  Constant  use  and  practice  will  improve 
the  various  powers  involved  so  that  general  strength  results. 
The  basis  of  sensory  training  is  contact  with  objective  reality. 
By  force  of  circumstances  the  child  receives  innumerable  sen- 
sory stimulations  through  light,  sound  waves,  physical  contact 
with  things,  etc.  Myriads  of  stimuli  come  to  the  child  un- 
sought, many  undesired  and  many  undesirable.  So  James 
says  "  the  world  presents  itself  to  the  child  as  one  big,  buzzing, 
blooming  confusion."  For  the  first  six  or  seven  months,  till  the 
child  can  sit  alone  and  reach  for  things,  there  is  no  need  of  pro- 
viding sense  stimulation;  till  then,  a  reasonable  amount  of 
quietude  \vill  be  more  difficult  to  secure  than  excitation.  From 
the  time  the  child  can  sit  alone  or  grasp  things  and  carry  them 
to  his  mouth,  he  should  have  various  objects  to  sample.  The 
percepts  thus  slowly  gained  are  indispensable  to  future  higher 
attainments.  The  ear  that  is  closed,  the  eye  that  is  blinded,  is 
not  only  lost  as  an  avenue  of  knowledge,  but  the  mind  of  the 
possessor  is  circumscribed  and  dwarfed  because  lacking  certain 
fundamental  kinds  of  knowledge.  The  congenially  blind  can 
never  know  color,  though  they  learn  its  entire  nomenclature; 
their  knowledge  of  form,  size,  and  perspective  is  circumscribed; 
while  they  can  never  know  complex  things  as  wholes  as  the 
seeing  do.  The  deaf  have  no  concept  of  sound — only  word 
ideas  about  it. 

The  child's  building-blocks  furnish  much  valuable  sensory 
material.  Laurie  believes  that  "  the  flat  brick  with  toothed  ends, 
admitting  of  one  being  fitted  into  another,  is  of  more  value  than 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  443- 

all  the  Froebelian  gifts."  l  As  soon  as  the  child  creeps  he  begins 
to  get  ideas  of  an  extended  environment.  With  walking  he  is  put 
in  possession  of  a  means  of  exploring  an  enlarged  world.  During 
early  years  the  child  should  come  into  direct  personal  contact 
with  a  large  range  of  objects.  The  field,  forest,  and  factory 
should  all  be  explored  and  examined.  He  should  literally  and 
figuratively  leave  no  stone  unturned  in  his  investigations  and 
explorations.  Not  only  should  unharmed  nature  and  primeval 
forests  be  interrogated,  but  applied  science  has  furnished  mul- 
titudes of  examples  as  worthy  objects  of  inspection.  The 
microscopic  features,  the  visible  workings,  and  many  of  the 
whys  relating  thereto  should  be  learned  concerning  all  the  ob- 
jects reasonably  accessible.  What  nonsense  to  first  study  steam- 
engines,  telegraphs,  plants,  animals,  birds,  and  rocks  from 
books!  The  only  excuse  for  book  study  at  all  is  that  we  may 
study  things  not  accessible  and  that  we  may  be  enabled  in  ad- 
vanced stages  to  study  the  object  to  advantage.  Darwin's 
epoch-making  contributions  could  never  have  appeared  had  he 
not  examined  at  first  hand  a  large  part  of  the  material  mentioned. 
No  progress  in  any  line  of  science  or  art  is  ever  made  by  those 
who  have  not  an  observational  knowledge  of  the  objects  of  their 
search.  The  astronomer  sweeps  the  heavens  with  his  eye, 
bringing  to  the  aid  of  his  limited  vision  distance-annihilating 
telescopes,  and  the  biologist  searches  in  the  laboratory  with  eyes 
made  a  thousand  times  acuter  by  the  microscope.  "Aristotle 
knew  the  importance  of  asking  nature  for  facts,  and  he  induced 
his  royal  pupil,  Alexander  the  Great,  to  employ  two  thousand 
persons  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  for  the  purpose  of  gather- 
ing information  concerning  beasts,  birds,  and  reptiles,  whereby 
he  was  enabled  to  write  fifty  volumes  upon  animated  nature. 
After  teachers  had  forgotten  his  methods  they  still  turned  to  his 
books  for  the  treasures  which  he  had  gathered."  : 

Function  of  Guidance. — In   the  tender  years  of  childhood 
the  chief  thing  is  to  provide  sufficient  opportunities  for  personal 

1  Institutes  of  Education,  p.  117. 

*  Schacffer,  Thinking  and  Learning  to  Think,  p.  61. 


444  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

observation  of  a  wide  range  of  objects.  Though  the  child  may 
be  aided  by  suggestion  and  question,  and  by  having  his  inter- 
rogations satisfied,  too  much  surveillance  should  not  be  exer- 
cised. Some  believe  that  no  guidance  whatever  should  be  ex- 
ercised, but  this  is  manifestly  an  extreme  view,  and  erroneous. 
For  example,  a  goodly  part  of  the  aural  sensations  emanate  in 
speech.  Surely  he  should  be  shielded  from  hearing  harmful  or 
vicious  speech  and  should  be  guided  in  its  reproduction,  being 
even  consciously  trained  in  the  correct  utterance  of  difficult 
combinations  to  insure  against  fixed  habits  of  mispronuncia- 
tions. Sights  worthy  of  view  and  unsuggestive  of  evil  should 
certainly  be  selected,  while  demoralizing  actions  should  be 
religiously  guarded  against.  When  the  child  begins  reading, 
there  must  be  very  definite  guidance  in  correct  vision  and  in 
accurate  imitation  of  phonetic  combinations.  This  means 
auditory  training  also.  Touch  is  trained  in  walking,  writing, 
talking,  posing,  etc. 

Training  should  not  degenerate  into  formal  gymnastics,  but 
should  be  a  means  to  an  end.  Only  in  this  way  can  interest  be 
maintained  and  proper  cultivation  secured.  Training  which 
subserves  a  useful  end  is  as  superior  to  seeing  and  hearing  for  the 
sake  of  hearing  and  seeing,  as  going  to  some  definite  place  is 
superior  to  merely  lifting  the  feet  and  setting  them  down  in  a 
treadmill.  But  when  either  physical  or  mental  exercise  degener- 
ates into  merely  obeying  directions  without  comprehension  or 
interest,  the  pupil's  time  is  worse  than  wasted.  Mere  idleness 
were  usually  better.  For  training  the  senses  a  good  many 
writers  have  prescribed  artificial  exercises,  wholly  dissociated 
from  any  desired  end.  The  results  must  be  stultifying.  The 
conscious  aim  should  not  be  to  train  the  power,  but  to  use  it 
intelligently  in  acquiring  knowledge.  The  training  will  take 
care  of  itself  if  the  power  is  employed  naturally  in  acquiring 
knowledge  possessing  intrinsic  worth.  Possibly  a  game  might 
be  made  of  the  exercise  so  that  a  little  zest  would  enter  in;  but 
to  have  just  so  much  seeing,  so  much  hearing,  so  much  smelling, 
so  much  tasting,  and  so  much  finger-bending  each  day  would  be 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  445 

a  splendid  example  of  formal  discipline.  Unfortunately,  I  have 
seen  just  such  exercises  and  for  the  purpose  of  formal  discipline. 
Even  physical  work  in  a  gymnasium  can  be  carried  on  only 
under  the  stimulus  of  a  game,  the  acquisition  of  a  bold  feat,  or 
something  "of  the  kind.  So  in  school  training  a  definite  end 
enlisting  the  right  emotional  attitude  should  ever  be  present. 

Laurie  remarks:1  "Some  people  would  make  the  child  ex- 
act from  the  first.  .  .  .  Let  the  child  alone:  let  him  be  the 
victim  of  the  myriad  sensations  which  pour  in  on  him.  The  soil 
may  be  growing  nothing,  but  it  is  being  fertilized  with  a  view 
to  a  future  harvest.  It  is  mere  pedantry  to  interfere  at  this  stage, 
and  the  result  will  be,  or  ought  to  be,  narrow  and  pedantic.  By 
all  means  provide  raw  'material  for  the  child,  but  leave  him 
alone  to  make  what  he  can  of  it.  By  all  means  give  him  paper, 
and  pencils,  and  painting  brushes,  and  colors,  and  bricks,  and 
spades;  but  let  him  alone.  We  were  not  sent  into  this  world  to 
be  manufactured  by  pedants,  but  to  grow  from  our  own  roots 
and  soil.  Up  to  the  age  of  six,  whatever  else  is  done,  let  there 
be  no  interference  with  the  freedom  of  sensation,  but  rather  en- 
courage contact  with  all  forms  of  existence,  and  promote  the 
natural  activity  of  the  child  in  every  direction." 

The  training  begun  before  school-days  should  not  be  aban- 
doned on  entering  school.  Increased  opportunity  for  more  ex- 
tended observations  should  be  afforded.  The  training  should 
become  more  intentional,  more  definite  things  should  be  seen, 
and  descriptions,  at  first  oral,  of  what  is  seen  should  become 
daily  more  accurate;  though  indefiniteness,  vagueness,  naivete, 
must  be  expected  through  many  years.  A  great  variety  of 
things  must  be  brought  to  the  child,  when  impossible  to  take  the 
child  to  them.  That  is,  specimens,  samples,  pictures  of  the 
great,  busy  world,  should  be  collected  into  museums,  cabinets, 
and  laboratories,  where  children  may  learn  of  nature,  art,  in- 
dustries, marts  of  trade,  commerce,  shipping,  mining,  etc.  A 
chance  to  see  and  examine  the  local  region  under  competent 
guidance  should  be  afforded  every  child.  For,  unfortunately,  the 

1  Institutes  of  Education,  p.  115. 


446  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

pupil  often  first  becomes  acquainted  with  his  home  locality 
through  reading.  The  knowledge  thus  acquired  never  possesses 
the  vividness  and  interest  that  real  personal  acquaintance  gives 
its  possessor.  Field,  forest,  and  stream  should  be  explored  and 
importuned  to  yield  their  secrets.  The  children  should,  like 
Shakespeare's  Duke,  find  "  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running 
brooks,  sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything." 

Object-Lessons. — The  purpose  of  object-lessons  is  to  bring  to 
the  learner  first-hand  experiences.  Object-lessons  are  begun  in 
the  cradle  and  should  be  a  part  of  daily  experiences  throughout 
life.  The  object-lessons  of  pre -school  days  have  been  unsys- 
tematic, largely  fortuitous,  unpremeditated,  and  in  a  la/ge 
measure  have  not  been  the  cause  of  purposive  reflection.  In 
school  object-lessons  are  to  be  given  with  definite  purpose  and 
intended  to  make  clear  certain  fundamental  facts.  They  are 
also  to  be  considered  relationally  for  the  purpose  of  causing 
reflection.  It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  a  "course  in  object- 
lessons"  is  to  be  given.  Objective  illustration  should  be  a  part 
of  the  instruction  in  each  and  every  branch  in  school.  Objec- 
tive illustration  is  necessary  because  "all  knowledge  takes  its 
rise  in  the  senses."  Objective  illustrations  should  be  given 
whenever  the  elemental  ideas  in  any  topic  are  not  easily  cognized 
through  imagination  and  reflection.  Their  necessity  is  as  great 
in  the  university  as  in  the  primary  school.  In  the  words  of  Dr. 
White,  "the  primary  ideas  should  be  taught  objectively  in  all 
grades  of  school."  The  meaning  of  primary  or  elemental  ideas 
needs  to  be  understood.  The  mind  can  image  any  material  or 
any  combination  of  material  things,  provided  the  elements  have 
been  derived  through  perception.  Once  transcend  experience 
of  the  elements  and  blankness  results.  As  the  congenitally 
blind  cannot  image  color,  nor  the  congenitally  deaf,  music,  a 
normal  pupil  cannot  image  a  machine  unless  he  has  actually  seen 
the  parts.  A  new  machine  as  a  whole  can,  of  course,  often  be 
studied  as  well  in  diagram  as  from  the  object  itself. 

Object-lessons  are  as  much  a  part  of  reading  lessons  as  of 
chemistry.  Whenever  fundamentals  are  lacking  through  ex- 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  447 

perience  they  should,  if  possible,  be  supplied  by  objective  illus- 
tration or  pictorial  representation.  (See  Imagination.)  A  cau- 
tion needs  to  be  offered  against  too  prolonged  continuation  of 
the  objects.  Just  as  soon  as  sensory  experience  has  been  made 
clear  the  object  is  no  longer  needed.  In  fact,  its  continuance  will 
be  positively  harmful.  Sensory  experience  is  the  lowest  form  of 
knowledge,  and  is  only  the  raw  material  for  a  finer  web  of 
thought.  Dealing  with  sensory  experience  when  the  child  should 
be  reflecting  will  surely  produce  arrested  development.  As  Dr. 
Hinsdale  has  so  well  said,  "the  Realists  have  deservedly  em- 
phasized the  value  of  sense-perception  and  of  sense-teaching  in 
education;  but  they  have  not  emphasized  the  facts  that  the 
particular  and  the  concrete  mark  an  early  and  imperfect  stage 
of  mental  advancement,  and  that  there  is  no  greater  clog  upon 
mental  progress  than  the  habit  of  thinking  it,  and  that  a  man's 
thinking  capacity  is  gauged  by  his  power  to  think  general  and 
abstract  thoughts.  Children  and  savages — all  immature  minds 
—live  in  their  senses;  cultivated  men  grow  out  of  them.  .  .  . 
The  savage  is  as  weak  in  speculative  reflection  as  he  is  strong 
in  keenness  of  scent.  .  .  .  That  is  a  significant  anecdote 
which  Dr.  Fitch  relates  of  the  teacher  who  was  testifying  before 
Lord  Taunton's  Commission  as  to  the  extraordinary  interest 
which  his  pupils  took  in  physical  science.  Asked  what  depart- 
ment of  science  most  interested  his  scholars,  he  replied:  'The 
chemistry  of  explosive  substances.'"  l 

In  gaining  ideas  of  number,  the  child  must  derive  his  first 
notions  through  experiences  with  concrete  things.  He  must 
learn  through  actual  experiences,  the  relative  magnitude  of  num- 
bers, the  magnitude  of  number  series,  and  in  the  same  way 
secure  a  correct  idea  of  the  process  involved  in  the  various 
computations.  But  it  is  pedagogically  unwise  to  have  the  pupil 
learn  every  fact  and  every  process  objectively.  For  example, 
3  +  2  or  3  X  2  may  be  learned  objectively,  but  9  +  8  or  9  X  8 
never  should  be.  These  latter  should  be  taken  as  authoritative 
statements,  unquestioningly.  Who  knows  from  objective  ex- 

1  Studies  in  Education,  p.  50. 


448  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

perience  that  9  X  8  =  72?  Whoever  first  learned  it  that  way  is 
to  be  pitied.  The  child  knows  from  counting  that  8  Q'S  are 
more  than  7  p's,  and  also  knows  from  counting  the  relative 
places  of  63  and  72,  so  that  when  9X8=  72  is  told  him  it  seems 
reasonable.  If  the  table  were  built  up  rationally,  step  by  step, 
he  would  not  believe  that  9X8=  14,  but  he  could  easily  be  made 
to  believe  that  it  equals  73.  Many  things  that  we  never  dem- 
onstrate nevertheless  fit  into  our  rational  thinking  so  as  to  do 
no  violence  to  the  usual  currents  of  thought. 

Dr.  Schaeffer  instances  a  school  in  which  the  principal  pro- 
posed concrete  work  in  fractions.  "The  teachers  and  pupils 
began  to  divide  things  into  halves,  and  thirds,  and  fourths,  and 
sixths.  They  added  and  subtracted  by  subdividing  these  into 
fractions  that  denoted  equal  parts  of  a  unit.  Whilst  the  charm 
of  novelty  still  clung  to  the  process,  a  stranger  who  visited  the 
school  asked  one  of  the  teachers  how  the  pupils  and  parents 
liked  the  change.  'Everybody  is  delighted,'  was  the  exclama- 
tion. A  year  later  the  same  teacher  was  asked  by  the  visitor, 
'How  are  you  succeeding  with  your  concrete  work  in  fractions?' 
With  a  dejected  air  she  replied,  'We  are  disappointed  with  the 
results.'  'Just  as  I  expected,'  exclaimed  the  visitor;  'for  you 
were  making  the  children  think  on  the  level  of  barbarism,  in- 
stead of  teaching  them  to  use  the  tools  of  labor-saving  machin- 
ery of  modern  civilization."  1 

As  far  as  possible,  object-lessons  should  be  given  in  their 
natural  setting.  The  object-lesson  apart  from  a  life  interest 
does  not  compare  with  one  that  grows  out  of  a  consideration  of 
things  in  their  natural  surroundings,  and  studied  as  a  part  of 
every-day  life.  Dewey  may  be  quoted  apropos  of  this  point:2 
"No  number  of  object-lessons,  got  up  as  object-lessons  for  the 
sake  of  giving  information,  can  afford  even  the  shadow  of  a  sub- 
stitute for  acquaintance  with  the  plants  and  animals  of  the  farm 
and  garden,  acquired  through  actual  living  among  them  and 
caring  for  them.  No  training  of  sense-organs  in  school,  intro- 

1  Thinking  and  Learning  to  Think,  p.  91. 
8  The  School  and  Society,  p.  24. 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  449 

duced  for  the  sake  of  training,  can  begin  to  compete  with  the 
alertness  and  fulness  of  sense-life  that  comes  through  daily  in- 
timacy and  interest  in  familiar  occupations."  In  all  branches 
of  instruction  it  is  important  to  gain  as  many  ideas  as  possible 
through  objective  illustration.  The  material  sciences  are  not 
the  only  ones  that  demand  laboratory  methods.  The  school- 
room with  apparatus  is  not  the  only  real  laboratory.  The  school- 
room laboratory,  in  fact,  is  only  a  miniature  controllable  rep- 
resentation of  certain  fundamental  laws  or  facts  of  the  great 
laboratories  of  nature  and  of  life.  Teachers  of  science  should 
vitalize  their  work  by  utilizing  these  greater  laboratories,  by 
affording  opportunities  to  inspect  them,  and  by  continually 
showing  the  applications  of  all  laws  and  principles  in  every-day 
life.  In  fact,  applications  are  more  apt  to  interest  than  are  the 
detached  illustrations. 

Excursions. — In  Germany  the  school  journey  is  a  unique  and 
invaluable  means  of  making  instruction  real.  Not  only  are  brief 
excursions  made  frequently  into  the  immediate  locality,  but 
many  schools  make  periodical  journeys  lasting  from  three  to  six 
days.  In  the  former  the  pupils  become  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  points  of  geographic  and  historic  interest,  and  with  the 
life,  about  them.  This  gives  an  apperceiving  background  for 
the  things  not  accessible.  How  many  of  us  have  studied  the 
botany  of  rare  plants  and  been  ignorant  of  dozens  of  common 
species  within  a  stone's  throw  of  our  door,  or  have  studied  rare 
rock  formations  from  a  book  when  an  hour's  tramp  would  have 
made  every  point  tangible.  The  longer  journey  may  not  be 
feasible  in  a  sparsely  settled  region,  but  in  New  England  and 
in  some  other  parts  of  the  United  States  it  could  be  carried  out 
to  good  advantage. 

Efficiency  of  the  Sense-Organs. — After  showing  at  such  length 
the  exceeding  importance  of  sense-perceptions  for  all  phases  of 
mental  life,  it  scarcely  needs  argument  to  show  the  importance 
of  keeping  the  child's  sense-organs  in  the  highest  possible  state 
of  efficiency.  Yet  how  many  parents  and  teachers  are  contin- 
ually negligent  in  this  important  matter.  The  sections  on  sight 


450  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

and  hearing  set  forth  through  definite  statistics  (te  alarming 
prevalence  of  defective  senses.  Astigmatism,  nv-opia,  color- 
blindness, partial  deafness  in  one  or  both  ears,  ii  sensibility  to 
pitch  differences,  total  blindness  in  one  eye,  tot(,l  deafness  in 
one  ear,  are  not  at  all  uncommon  and  oftentimes  a»e  unsuspected 
by  the  sufferer.  The  discussion  of  heredity  admonishes  us  of 
the  great  probability  of  the  perpetuation  of  these  infirmities 
through  generation  after  generation. 

How  important  that  teachers  be  cognizant  of  these  facts  and 
that  they  be  sympathetic  with  children  thus  afflicted!  Many  a 
poor  child  has  failed  and  received  harsh  criticism  from  his 
teacher  though  he  has  done  his  best.  He  has  been  adjudged 
obstinate  and  perverse  when  he  is  the  victim  of  circumstances 
over  which  he  has  had  no  control.  The  teacher  needs  to  possess 
sympathy  and  patience  in  dealing  with  such  cases.  More  than 
that,  he  needs  scientific  knowledge  enabling  him  to  detect 
defects.  Dr.  Schaeffer  pointedly  remarks:1  "In  cases  of  defec- 
tive eyesight  the  first  step  toward  the  solution  of  the  spelling 
problem,  as  well  as  the  first  condition  in  teaching  the  pupil  to 
think  accurately,  is  to  send  him  to  a  skilled  oculist.  .  .  .  Correct 
vision  will  assist  the  pupil  not  merely  in  learning  the  exact  form 
of  the  words  which  he  uses  in  writing,  but  also  in  forming  correct 
ideas  of  the  things  with  which  the  mind  deals  in  the  thought- 
processes."  Then  there  should  be  the  school  physician  ready 
to  pass  expert  judgment  on  suspected  cases.  The  school  nurse, 
in  large  cities,  should  be  at  hand  to  minister  to  those  temporarily 
disqualified  for  efficient  work.  Greater  intelligence  upon  these 
matters  would  cause  the  child  with  defective  senses  to  be  given 
more  advantageous  positions  in  class,  relieved  of  certain  kinds 
of  work,  be  given  extra  time,  etc. 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  nearly  all  children  begin 
reading  and  writing  too  early.  They  are  naturally  far-sighted, 
and  the  excessive  strain  of  reading  and  writing  when  immature 
causes  near-sightedness.  Altogether  too  much  work  is  copied, 
and  usually  from  the  black-board,  under  atrocious  conditions. 

1  Thinking  and  Learning  to  Think,  p.  51. 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  451 

The  written  examination  is  fit  only  for  mature  persons,  but  little 
children  are  annually  tortured  on  this  rack.  No  formal  written 
examination  ought  to  be  given  below  the  seventh  grade.  From 
there  on  they  should  usually  be  shorter  than  they  are.  It  is  a 
sad  commentary  on  our  methods  of  teaching  that  the  higher  the 
state  of  education,  the  more  defective  in  senses  and  bodily 
conditions  people  are.  Could  we  but  preserve  the  Greek  ideal 
of  harmonious  bodily  and  mental  development  the  race  would 
grow  stronger  and  more  perfect  in  every  bodily  feature.  There 
are  many  evidences  of  a  return  to  that  beautiful  ideal.  May 
its  universal  acceptance  be  speeded! 

In  regard  to  the  importance  of  tests  for  sense-defects,  Kotel- 
mann  wrote:1  " It  might  naturally  be  supposed  that  a  deficiency 
in  hearing  so  small  as  to  be  ascertainable  only  by  means  of  a 
watch  or  a  whisper,  that  is,  by  a  delicate  test,  could  be  of  no 
special  disadvantage  to  pupils,  on  the  ground  that  they  can  fol- 
low the  recitations  in  spite  of  it.  But  this  would  be  an  erroneous 
notion.  Of  all  the  requirements  made  of  the  ear,  one  of  the 
most  difficult  is  the  understanding  of  language.  The  cause  of 
this  is  the  great  number  of  consonants  that  are  crowded  together; 
since  these  have  the  nature  of  noises,  they  are  not  so  readily 
apprehended  as  the  vowels,  which  are  more  like  musical  tones. 
.  .  .  The  ear  catches  the  spoken  word  as  an  entirety,  needing 
often  only  a  few  characteristic  sounds  for  the  purpose.  For 
this  reason  a  pupil  with  defective  hearing  can  for  some  time 
correctly  understand  lectures,  dictations,  and  similar  exercises; 
but  his  attention  will  gradually  weaken  under  the  severe  strain, 
and  by  failing  to  hear  one  or  more  words  he  may  lose  the  sense 
altogether.  A  pupil  with  normal  hearing  can  in  such  a  case 
usually  catch  the  connection  from  what  follows;  while  the  pupil 
with  defective  hearing  finds  it  much  more  difficult  to  do  so. 
His  embarrassment  is  especially  great  when  new  words  are  in- 
volved, as  is  often  the  case  in  foreign  languages,  history,  geogra- 
phy, and  natural  science,  because  he  finds  it  impossible  to  fill 
out  the  part  of  the  word  which  he  does  not  hear."  And  because 

1  School  Hygiene,  p.  282. 


452  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

his  perceptions  are  vague  and  indefinite  his  concepts  are  of  the 
same  character  and  his  memories  of  the  subjects  rapidly  dis- 
appear. 

Relation  of  Books  to  Sensory  Experiences. — One  of  the  com- 
monest mistakes  is  to  make  teaching  simply  a  matter  of  words. 
From  the  very  fact  that  schools  have  properly  so  much  to  do 
with  books,  it  is  easy  to  regard  teaching  as  a  mere  matter  of 
memorizing  the  words  of  books.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
books  do  not  deal  directly  with  realities.  They  only  contain 
records  about  realities.  The  realities  must  be  acquired  through 
personal  examination  of  the  realities  themselves.  Text-books 
must  be  regarded  as  texts;  the  sermons  must  come  from  outside 
sources.  To  be  sure,  books  should  serve  to  reveal  knowledge 
which  one  might  not  get  so  readily  or  not  at  all  by  studying  the 
realities  alone;  but  they  can  only  do  this  when  they  constantly 
appeal  to  experiences  realized.  This  is  true  of  the  knowledge 
of  a  dynamo,  a  potato,  or  a  rock;  it  is  also  true  of  a  psychological 
fact,  or  a  philosophical  theory.  The  dynamo  is  only  known 
when  it  has  been  made  real  and  is  comprehended  through 
experience;  likewise  one  knows  nothing  of  a  psychological  law 
until  he  has  realized  it  through  his  own  personal  experience. 
"Not  psychology  but  to  psychologize"  should  be  the  end  sought 
in  that  study. 

A  boy  could  never  really  know  skating  by  hearing  lectures 
upon  the  process.  The  only  way  to  realize  it  is  to  skate.  The 
only  way  to  know  dancing  and  writing  is  to  dance  and  to  write. 
The  only  way  to  know  how  to  saw  boards  and  make  joints  is 
actually  to  do  those  things.  The  teacher  should  scrutinize 
every  step  in  every  subject  and  inquire:  "How  can  I  cause  the 
boys  and  girls  really  to  know  this  step?"  If  this  were  done  in 
every  school-re  om  in  the  land  the  educational  millennium  would 
soon  appear  on  the  horizon.  Dewey  wrote:  "  What  is  primarily 
required  is  first-hand  experience.  Until  recently  the  school  has 
literally  been  dressed  out  with  hand-me-down  garments,  with 
intellectual  suits  which  other  people  have  worn."  And  we  might 
add  that  like  all  borrowed  garments,  they  are  usually  misfits. 


SENSORY   EDUCATION  453 

Dr.  Gordy1  aptly  compared  words  to  paper  money,  and  con- 
sequently, like  paper  money,  "their  value  depends  upon  what 
they  stand  for.  As  you  would  be  none  the  richer  for  possessing 
Confederate  money  to  the  amount  of  a  million  dollars,  so  your 
pupil  would  be  none  the  wiser  for  being  able  to  repeat  book 
after  book  by  heart,  unless  the  words  were  the  signs  of  ideas  in 
their  minds.  Words  without  ideas  are  irredeemable  paper  cur- 
rency. It  is  the  practical  recognition  of  this  truth  that  has 
revolutionized  the  best  schools  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 
...  In  what  did  the  reform  inaugurated  by  Pestalozzi  consist  ? 
In  the  substitution  of  the  intelligent  for  the  blind  use  of  words. 
He  reversed  the  educational  engine.  Before  his  time  teachers 
expected  their  pupils  to  go  from  words  to  ideas;  he  taught  them 
to  go  from  ideas  to  words.  He  brought  out  the  fact  upon  which 
I  have  been  insisting — that  all  they  can  do  is  to  help  the  pupil 
to  recall  and  remember  ideas  already  formed.  With  Pestalozzi, 
therefore,  and  with  those  who  have  been  imbued  with  his  theo- 
ries, the  important  matter  is  the  forming  of  clear  and  definite 
ideas." 

Some  Ways  and  Means. — Twenty-five  years  ago,  when  I  was 
in  the  high  school,  we  studied  physics  by  the  book  method.  Not 
a  single  piece  of  apparatus  did  the  school  possess — much  less  a 
laboratory.  Not  a  pupil  in  the  class  performed  an  experiment, 
nor  did  the  teacher.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  study  of 
realities  was  through  the  good  diagrams  and  pictures  in  the 
text  and  the  diagram  occasionally  drawn  on  the  black-board. 
Astronomy,  zoology,  and  geology  were  studied  in  the  same  school 
and  by  the  same  barren  verbal  method.  I  think  chemistry  was 
also  studied.  Had  there  been  real  chemicals  and  an  occasional 
explosion  I  am  sure  that  I  should  remember  the  fumes  and  the 
explosions.  Later  pursuit  of  this  subject  in  a  real  laboratory 
left  me  a  very  definite  remembrance  of  the  nature  of  chemistry. 
In  the  study  of  botany  we  fortunately  had  a  teacher  fresh  from 
a  university,  and  we  studied  real,  live,  growing  plants.  Unfort- 
unately the  main  end  seemed  to  be  names  and  classifications) 

1  Lessons  in  Psychology,  p.  260. 


454  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

but  in  spite  of  that  we  handled  plants,  tramped  through  swamps 
and  over  hills,  tore  our  clothes  in  the  thickets  of  brush,  and  dis- 
covered where  the  plants  grew,  when  they  grew,  and  how  they 
grew.  Those  impressions  will  always  remain.  Time  and  dis- 
tance, and  other  impressions  cannot  efface  them.  They  were 
my  own  personal  experiences,  my  own  ideas  and  not  Gray's 
nor  Apgar's,  nor  my  teacher's.  They  are  mine  still. 

In  teaching  arithmetic  it  is  so  easy  to  contrive  means  of  afford- 
ing sensory  experiences  and  of  making  things  concrete.  All 
measures  of  length,  areas,  volume,  weights,  capacity,  etc.,  can 
be  readily  objectified.  Unless  gained  concretely  they  never 
mean  anything.  Children  may  recite  glibly  tables  of  denomi- 
nate numbers  and  not  have  a  single  definite  notion  of  what 
they  are  mouthing.  An  acquaintance  of  mine  relates  that  when 
a  boy  back  in  Ohio,  one  day  when  they  were  studying  the  ani- 
mals of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  an  itinerant  bear-trainer  with 
three  Rocky  Mountain  bears  passed  that  way  and  stopped  in 
front  of  the  old  log  school-house.  Here  was  a  grand  chance  to 
let  the  children  see  the  real  thing.  What  did  that  teacher  do? 
True  to  her  training  and  ambition  as  a  strict  disciplinarian,  and 
true  to  her  ideal  that  book  learning  was  what  the  school  was 
maintained  to  give,  she  sternly  ordered  all  to  cease  looking  out 
of  the  windows,  even  rapped  some  on  the  head,  and  commanded: 
"  Study  your  books ! "  Recently  a  teacher  told  me  apologetically 
that  when  Barnum  and  Bailey's  circus  and  menagerie  was  in 
the  city  she  allowed  the  children  a  quarter-holiday,  and  added 
still  more  apologetically:  "I  really  think  they  learned  almost  as 
much  as  if  they  had  stayed  in  school."  My  answer  was :  "  Why, 
bless  you,  they  learned  more  in  that  quarter-day  about  animals 
and  many  wonders  of  the  world  than  your  school  could  have 
given  them  in  ten  years!  In  fact,  the  knowledge  they  gained 
there  you  could  not  give  them  at  all.  By  all  means  dismiss 
school  every  time  a  great  circus  and  hippodrome  is  within  reach 
of  the  children.  The  menagerie  will  furnish  your  boys  and 
girls  geography,  natural  history,  and  language  lessons,  such  as 
no  school  on  earth  can  give." 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  455 

Kindergartners  have  struck  the  right  key-note  in  their  theory 
of  sense-training,  but  many  kindergartners  interpret  it  altogether 
too  narrowly.  They  seem  to  regard  the  "gifts"  as  the  sole 
means  of  sense-training.  By  limiting  their  activities  to  the  few 
wooden  blocks  they  make  the  entire  kindergarten  work  in  many 
quarters  altogether  too  "wooden."  The  whole  range  of  work 
in  the  kindergarten  and  the  primary  school  has  been  vitalized 
in  other  places  by  utilizing  a  multitude  of  objects  and  activities 
common  to  the  child's  every-day  environment.  Things  in  the 
home,  household  activities,  work  in  the  garden,  street  scenes, 
field,  forest,  mountain,  and  stream;  the  mill  and  the  factory,  as 
well  as  the  country,  must  all  be  contributors  to  the  wide  range 
of  experiences  which  every  child  should  receive. 

Let  us  remember  with  Dr.  Hinsdale1  that  "every  sense  and 
every  educational  agent  has  its  own  appropriate  function  that 
no  other  sense  or  agent  can  fully  discharge.  A  man  blind  from 
birth  may  learn  the  whole  color  vocabulary,  but  he  can  have  no 
conception  of  its  meaning.  The  appropriate  sense  must  always 
furnish  a  starting  point  from  which  the  mind  may  work  through 
the  other  senses  in  the  direction  of  substitution.  Similarly, 
language,  writing,  and  pictures  can  never  take  the  place  of  a 
suitable  grounding  in  the  primal  realities  of  sense  and  of  the 
spirit.  This  fact  must  not  be  obscured.  No  human  being's 
cultivation  ever  began  with  words  of  wisdom.  The  library  is  a 
sealed  book,  save  to  him  who  already  possesses  the  keys  of  knowl- 
edge. The  command  to  keep  out  of  the  fire  is  significant  only 
to  those  persons  who  have  already  learned  by  experience  what 
the  fire  is.  In  this  primal  sense,  therefore,  the  education  of  all 
men  starts  at  the  same  place  and  proceeds  by  the  same  steps." 

The  School  of  Life. — We  must  not  assume  that  the  child 
secures  all  his  education  within  the  four  walls  of  a  school-room 
and  from  his  text-books.  As  set  out  in  the  introductory  chap- 
ters and  as  emphasized  in  every  subsequent  one,  the  whole  of 
life  is  education.  The  school  should  be  the  best  interpreter  of 
life  and  should  furnish  more  tools  than  any  other  source  for  the 

1  Studies  in  Education,  p.  31. 


456  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

work  of  life,  yet  many,  if  not  the  most  important  educational 
lessons  must  come  from  outside  the  school.  The  extent  of  the 
child's  extra-school  experience  determines  the  manner  in  which 
he  shall  appreciate  what  we  attempt  to  teach  him.  Years 
before  the  child  knocks  at  the  school-house  door,  and  during  his 
school  age  for  many  more  days  and  hours  than  he  is  conning  his 
lessons,  he  is  acquiring  by  nature's  method  more  and  better 
than  we  usually  teach  him.  In  "The  Barefoot  Boy,"  Whittier 
has  beautifully  expressed  a  profound  educational  idea  and  shown 
us  how  independence  of  thought  should  be  acquired,  and  that 
life  is  the  greatest  school.  He  praises  the  boy  for  his 

Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools, 
Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild  flower's  time  and  place, 
Flight  of  fowl  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood; 
How  the  tortoise  bears  his  shell, 
How  the  woodchuck  digs  his  cell, 
And  the  groundmole  sinks  his  well; 
How  the  robin  feeds  her  young, 
How  the  oriole's  nest  is  hung; 
Where  the  whitest  lilies  blow, 
Where  the  freshest  berries  grow, 
Where  the  ground-nut  trails  its  vine, 
Where  the  wood  grape's  clusters  shine; 
Of  the  black  wasp's  cunning  way, 
Mason  of  his  walls  of  clay, 
And  the  architectural  plans 
Of  gray  hornet  artisans! 
For,  eschewing  books  and  tasks, 
Nature  answers  all  he  asks; 
Hand  in  hand  with  her  he  walks, 
Face  to  face  with  her  he  talks. 

Halleck  remarks  that  "If  the  child's  knowledge  reaches  to  a 
solid  foundation  of  sense-training  like  this,  the  floods  of  time  will 
beat  in  vain  upon  that  knowledge.  Other  things  may  pass 
away,  but  that  remains  while  the  brain  lasts."  He  argues  at 
great  length  that  country  environment  has  proved  most  con- 
ducive to  the  development  of  great  intellects.  He  cites  in  proqf 
of  his  contention  the  names  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Cromwell, 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  457 

Addison,  Bunyan,  Dryden,  Johnson,  Byron,  Longfellow,  and 
many  others  who  were  illustrious  and  who  were  profoundly 
influenced  by  rural  environment.  He  concludes  his  array  of 
facts  with  the  following  statement:  "A  study  of  the  early  history 
of  these  eminent,  men  has  shown  that  the  majority  of  them  had 
their  sensory  brain  tracts  developed  to  a  considerable  degree 
by  the  incomparable  stimuli  of  the  country.  Since  there  is 
more  room  for  exercise  in  the  country,  more  green  fields  in  which 
to  romp  and  play,  more  groves  and  forests  in  which  to  wander, 
the  motor  tracts  are  likely  to  receive  better  training  in  such 
tempting  environment.  Again,  we  notice  that  nearly  all  these 
men  travelled  either  in  their  own  land  or  abroad.  This  is  what 
we  might  have  expected,  since  a  study  of  the  nervous  system, 
and  especially  of  the  laws  of  attention,  has  shown  that  unvarying 
stimuli  gradually  elicit  less  and  less  attention,  although  they 
may  be  of  the  very  finest  sort.  A  change  in  this  environment 
is  occasionally  necessary  to  awaken  us  thoroughly  and  to  make 
us  men  of  action."  1  Country  environment  is  undoubtedly 
conducive  to  the  child's  best  mental  development,  first,  because 
it  furnishes  stimuli  which  are  simple  and  comprehensible  at 
that  stage  of  development;  second,  because  there  is  also  greater 
opportunity  for  freedom,  thus  allowing  the  child  to  follow  lines 
of  interest;  and,  third,  because  his  growth  is  not  forced.  The 
city  is  too  complex,  too  intricate,  and  too  much  like  a  hot-house. 

Training  in  Observation:  Meaning. — Before  discussing  meth- 
ods of  training  in  observation  it  will  be  necessary  to  indicate 
the  meaning  of  the  expression  "training  in  observation."  Most 
writers  employ  the  phrase  "training  the  observation"  as  if  there 
were  a  general  power  or  faculty  called  the  observation.  It  has 
been  considered  as  if  it  were  co-ordinate  with  memory,  imagina- 
tion, etc.  (Even  these  we  no  longer  regard  as  general  faculties 
but  as  the  sum  of  powers  manifested  in  particular  directions.) 

But  observation  is  not  co-ordinate  with  these,  for  it  is  not  a 
faculty  but  a  process,  involving  several  faculties.  To  observe 
means  primarily  to  perceive.  Now,  perception  means  more 

1  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,  p.  92. 


458  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

than  merely  receiving  physical  impressions  of  light,  sound, 
pressure,  etc.  It  means  attentively  fixing  the  mind  upon  some 
object  and  giving  it  careful  mental  scrutiny.  Perception  is  a 
mental  act  involving  many  of  the  so-called  higher  powers  of  the 
mind.  Every  perception  includes  comparison,  discrimination, 
and  judgment  in  some  degree.  It  involves,  in  a  rudimentary 
way  at  least,  all  the  highest  phases  of  mentality.  One  of  the 
greatest  mistakes  in  psychology  has  been  in  regarding  each 
power  of  the  mind  as  if  it  were  independent.  Every  mental 
product  higher  than  an  undifferentiated  and  unlocalized  sensa- 
tion has  involved  in  its  formation  to  some  extent  the  use  of  all 
the  elements  of  the  higher  powers.  To  form  even  the  simplest 
percept  there  are  necessitated  acts  of  memory,  imagination, 
comparison,  discrimination,  and  judgment.  Perception  being  a 
mental  act  does  not  end  with  the  formation  of  a  retinal  image, 
the  vibration  of  the  Cortian  fibres  of  the  ear,  or  the  excitation  of 
the  Pacinian  corpuscles  of  the  skin.  Perception  as  a  process 
means  the  interpretation  of  elements  gained  through  sensations. 
It  means  that  sensations  are  viewed  in  the  light  of  past  experi- 
ences and  evaluated  in  terms  of  the  resultants  as  then  cognized 
by  the  mind.  In  perception  they  are  recognized  in  their  relation 
to  other  mental  products  then  in  the  focus  of  consciousness  or 
immediately  called  into  the  focus  through  associative  laws. 
Thus  every  perception  is  an  acquired  perception. 

Observation  and  Apperception. — Observation  means  fixing  the 
mind  upon  an  object  and  attentively  viewing  it.  Only  by  vol- 
untarily focusing  the  attention  and  bringing  to  bear  all  one's 
past  related  experience  can  one  really  observe.  In  a  scientific 
observation  often  special  conditions  must  be  created  under 
which  a  particular  feature  may  be  viewed,  or  special  apparatus 
may  be  necessary  in  order  to  make  the  observation  of  value. 
In  order  to  have  the  observation  of  any  object  full  of  meaning 
there  is  then  presupposed  a  rich  fund  of  experience  of  an  allied 
nature.  Otherwise  the  perception  is  devoid  of  content.  Dr. 
W.  T.  Harris  says:  "It  is  not  perception  pure  and  simple  that 
makes  observation,  but  it  is  rather  what  is  called  apperception 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  459 

(the  use  of  the  stored-up  results  of  the  aggregate  perception  of 
the  race)  that  gives  us  power  to  see  new  objects  and  explain  fa- 
miliar objects." *  Not  all  perceptions  are  correct,  even  if  careful 
attention  has  been  given  to  them.  The  senses  do  not  deceive 
us,  but  our  interpretations  may  be  erroneous.  We  view  all 
phenomena  with  glasses  colored  by  all  our  previous  experiences. 
Our  world  is  what  past  experience  makes  it.  Because  of  faulty 
observations  which  are  assumed  to  be  correct,  oftentimes  exceed- 
ingly erroneous  judgments  are  perpetuated,  through  experiences 
of  individuals  not  being  accurate  enough  to  detect  the  errors. 
Dr.  Whewell  writes  that  "A  vague  and  loose  mode  of  looking 
at  facts  very  easily  observable  left  men  for  a  long  time  under 
the  belief  that  a  body,  ten  times  as  heavy  as  another,  falls  ten 
times  as  fast;  that  objects  immersed  in  water  are  always  magni- 
fied, without  regard  to  the  form  of  the  surface;  that  the  magnet 
exerts  an  irresistible  force;  that  the  crystal  is  always  associated 
with  ice;  and  the  like."  2 

Observation  and  Attention. — Effective  observation  presupposes 
concentration  of  effort.  But  in  attempting  to  teach  pupils  to 
observe,  teachers  frequently  proceed  exactly  counter  to  the  psy- 
chological laws  governing  the  processes.  They  urge  children 
to  "notice  everything  about  them  on  their  way  to  school,"  they 
impress  upon  them  the  idea  that  they  ought  to  "know  everything 
that  is  going  on  about  them,"  that  they  must  "keep  their  eyes 
and  ears  open  to  everything,"  etc.  Now,  good  observation 
means  careful  observation,  seeing  with  reflection,  dipping  be- 
neath the  surface  and  not  skimming  it.  It  means  concentration 
of  attention  upon  the  thing  to  be  observed.  Careful  attention 
to  a  given  object  necessitates  inattention  to  all  other  things. 
In  a  part  of  school  work  pupils  are  taught  to  be  inattentive  to 
objects  which  should  not  concern  them  in  order  to  attend  prop- 
erly to  things  that  rightfully  should  occupy  their  attention.  We 
wish  them  to  attend  to  their  arithmetic,  their  reading,  or  their 
spelling  and  to  ignore  the  classes  that  are  reciting  in  the  same 

1  Preface  to  E.  G.  Howe's  Advanced  Elementary  Science. 

2  Whewell,  Novum  Organum  Renovatum,  p.  61. 


460  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

room,  to  ignore  the  boys  that  are  walking  about,  the  singing  of 
the  birds,  the  rattle  of  the  street-cars,  the  bright  sunshine,  and 
the  marbles  in  their  pockets.  We  wish  the  pupil,  for  the  time 
being,  to  be  entirely  absorbed  in  one  thing.  That  is  good 
training  in  observation,  but  few  teachers  would  call  such  occu- 
pation an  observation  lesson.  They  think  of  observation  les- 
sons only  in  connection  with  flowers,  trees,  animals,  birds'  nests, 
and  other  material  realities.  The  usual  directions  for  observing 
would  lead  to  dissipation  of  attention — "scatteration" — rather 
than  concentration. 

Institute  conductors  used  to  talk  much  about  training  the 
observation.  Frequently  they  asked  such  questions  as  "How 
many  upper  teeth  has  a  cow  ?  On  which  side  of  the  cow's  horns 
are  the  ears?  When  a  cow  lies  down  does  she  get  down  with 
her  fore  feet  or  hind  feet  first?"  The  same  question  was  asked 
about  the  horse.  "How  many  steps  in  the  stairs  coming  into 
the  building?"  In  country  institutes  the  teachers  could  seldom 
answer  the  questions  concerning  the  farm  animals  and  after  the 
conductor  discoursed  learnedly  (at  least  at  great  length)  upon 
training  the  observation  and  the  teachers'  poorly  developed 
powers  of  observation,  the  teachers,  who  had  lived  all  their  lives 
among  farm  scenes,  felt  much  chagrined  and  very  green.  Had 
some  of  the  institute  members  politely  requested  the  conductor 
to  describe  the  lining  of  his  coat  or  his  hat,  to  tell  the  number 
of  buttons  on  his  coat,  the  colors  of  his  neck-tie,  the  length  of 
his  shoes,  the  number  of  eyelets  in  his  shoes,  whether  his  shoe 
tips  were  plain  or  foxed,  the  number  of  windows  in  his  house, 
etc.,  it  would  then  have  been  a  time  for  exultation  on  the  part 
of  the  rustics  and  of  chagrin  on  the  part  of  the  professor. 

Effects  Special,  Rather  than  General.— Training  in  observa- 
tion is  special  in  its  effects  rather  than  general.  It  has  been 
currently  taught  that  training  to  observe  in  one  direction  or  in 
one  field  will  make  one  a  more  skilled  observer  in  all  others,  but 
this  view  is  coming  to  be  discredited.  Training  in  observing 
zoological  specimens,  for  example,  will  not  give  increased  skill 
in  observing  music  or  spring  fashions.  If  you  were  to  meet  two 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  461 

acquaintances  on  the  street,  the  one  a  skilled  botanist  and  the 
other  an  uneducated  person,  the  latter  would  be  more  apt  to  see 
you  than  your  biological  friend.  Now,  it  must  be  conceded 
that  the  biologist  is,  in  general,  the  more  skilled  observer, 
although  the  unlettered  person  does  just  what  some  pedagogues 
advise  for  the  cultivation  of  the  powers  of  observation,  i.  e.,  he 
sees  everything  about  him.  But  in  reality  he  sees  nothing,  that 
is,  he  sees  nothing  well.  Seeing,  as  explained  above,  is  a  mental 
act  and  is  not  true  seeing  at  all  when  the  act  ends  with  the  iden- 
tification of  a  retinal  image.  Dr.  Harris  says  that  "The  acute 
seeing  of  the  hawk  or  greyhound  does  not  lead  to  a  scientific 
knowledge,  and  persons  with  excellent  seeing  and  hearing 
capacity  in  general,  but  without  scientific  training,  are  always 
poor  observers.  More  than  this,  an  education  in  science, 
although  it  fits  a  person  to  observe  in  the  line  of  his  own  specialty, 
does  not  fit  him  to  observe  in  the  line  of  another  science  which 
he  has  not  investigated.  On  the  contrary,  the  training  in  one 
particular  line  rather  tends  to  dull  the  general  power  of  observa- 
tion in  other  provinces  of  facts.  The  archaeologist  Winckelmann 
.  .  .  could  recognize  a  work  of  art  by  a  small  fragment  of  it,  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  he  could  observe  a  fish's  scale  and  recog- 
nize the  fish  to  which  it  belonged.  On  the  other  hand,  Agassiz 
could  recognize  a  fish  from  one  of  its  scales,  but  could  not,  like 
Winckelmann,  recognize  a  work  of  art  from  one  of  its  fragments." l 

Methods  of  Training  in  Observation. — From  what  has  been 
said  above,  it  will  be  seen  that  no  special  means  for  training  are 
necessary.  There  is  no  class  of  objects  nor  group  of  subjects 
which  form  a  monopoly  for  the  training  in  observation.  It  is 
very  evident  that  if  we  wish  to  become  good  observers  in  any 
direction  we  must  observe  much  and  carefully  in  that  direction. 
We  must  "store"  in  the  mind  a  vast  fund  of  information  which 
will  form  an  "apperception  mass"  in  the  light  of  which  the  new 
material  is  to  be  observed. 

All  exercises  or  occupations  that  require  close  attention,  care- 
ful discrimination  of  small  differences,  exhaustive  comparison 

1  Preface  to  E.  G.  Howe's  Advanced  Elementary  Science. 


462  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

of  factors,  and  identification  of  similarities  contribute  to  the 
general  qualities  of  good  observation.  Though  the  training  in 
observation  is  special,  yet  the  habits  and  tendencies  of  mind 
engendered  by  accurate  observation  in  a  given  field,  will  un- 
doubtedly contribute  to  the  possibility  of  better  observation  in 
other  lines.  However,  if  one  becomes  proficient  in  one  line  it 
is  no  guaranty  that  he  will  observe  everything  in  every  other 
line  entirely  unrelated.  It  merely  means  that  he  may  if  he 
becomes  interested  in  that  direction  and  sets  about  to  accumu- 
late exhaustive  acquaintanceship  in  that  direction.  It  also 
follows  that  whatever  exercise  is  attempted  the  complete  and 
undivided  attention  should  be  given  to  it.  An  attempt  should 
be  made  to  marshal  quickly  and  carefully  all  the  related  experi- 
ences that  will  enable  one  to  obtain  a  clearer  understanding  of 
the  object  in  hand. 

Pupils  need  careful  training  in  observing  in  each  branch  of 
study  with  which  they  deal.  Geography  and  natural  science 
have  usually  been  thought  of  as  affording  special  training  in 
observation.  Because  they  reveal  the  world  of  objects  which 
have  hitherto  been  unseen  by  children  and  thus  enlarge  their 
horizon  they  are  very  important  and  perhaps  seem  to  have 
contributed  exceptionally  to  the  powers  of  observation.  They 
undoubtedly  have  contributed  to  the  range  of  the  child's  obser- 
vation, but  they  have  not  contributed  any  more  to  the  strength 
of  attention  nor  to  fineness  of  discrimination  than  Latin  or  any 
other  foreign  language  would  have  done.  The  study  of  history 
may  also  contribute  very  largely  to  the  power  of  discernment 
of  fine  differences  of  opinion.  If  studied  comparatively,  as  it 
should  be,  it  induces  careful  discrimination  among  facts.  Geome- 
try aids  in  visual  discrimination,  while  all  mathematics  increases 
the  discrimination  among  logical  processes.  The  reading  les- 
sons demand  careful  attention  to  certain  details  and  the  detection 
of  fine  shades  of  differences.  There  is  necessity  for  discrimina- 
tion of  letters  and  words,  of  various  tones  and  modulations  of 
the  voice  and  the  exact  positions  of  the  vocal  organs  in  producing 
them.  Then  there  are  fine  shades  of  meaning  that  require  close 


SENSORY  EDUCATION  463 

attention  and  a  careful  weighing  of  factors  in  order  that  they 
may  be  determined  with  exactness. 

Thus  we  see  that  no  subject  can  be  shown  to  monopolize  the 
opportunities  for  training  in  observation,  but  that  any  and  all 
may  contribute  in  special  directions.  Moreover,  since  all  train- 
ing is  special  it  follows  that  in  order  to  become  an  "all-round" 
observer,  the  training  must  be  so  comprehensive  as  to  create  a 
many-sided  interest  and  to  afford  exercise  in  observation  in 
many  of  the  fields  of  human  learning.  It  should  be  conceded 
probably  that  in  early  childhood  when  the  child  is  in  the  presen- 
tative  stage  material  things  should  be  sought  which  offer  the 
child  tangible  data  for  comparison.  But  it  is  a  false  doctrine 
of  development  which  would  maintain  that  sense-perceptions 
should  constitute  the  sole  psychic  experiences  of  the  child. 
Because  the  sensory  centres  are  the  best  developed  it  does  not 
follow  that  no  abstract  processes  enter  into  the  mental  life. 
Early  in  life  generic  images  or  recepts  form  an  important  medium 
for  thought.  A  stage  higher  and  we  have  thinking  by  means  of 
finer  instruments— words;  and  at  last  conceptual  thinking,  car- 
ried on  in  so  purely  an  abstract  way  that  almost  all  traceable 
evidence  of  the  symbols  disappears  beneath  the  threshold  of 
consciousness.  The  child,  therefore,  needs  for  his  proper 
development  to  be  early  exercised  with  things  appealing  to  sense 
perception,  and  also  to  be  trained  to  compare  sense  images  with 
revived  images.  Not  only  should  he  compare  perceptions  and 
images,  but  also  the  recepts  or  generic  images,  which  are  per- 
fectly familiar,  and  his  concepts  should  be  continually  compared 
with  each  other.  Now  in  this  last  process  we  have  reasoning. 
Those  who  advocate  excluding  from  the  first  school  years  all 
work  demanding  reasoning  do  not  understand  psychology. 
There  are  all  degrees  of  reasoning  from  the  simplest  inferences 
of  the  dog  (or  of  other  lower  animals)  up  to  the  complex  abstrac- 
tions evolved  by  a  Kant  or  a  Newton.  Providing  that  the 
concepts  with  which  the  child  deals  are  not  too  complex  in  their 
origin  for  him  to  grasp  their  significance  the  child  will  in  no 
wise  be  injured  by  higher  mental  processes. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
NATURE  OF  IMAGINATION 

Popular  Meaning. — In  popular  parlance  the  term  imagination 
is  applied  exclusively  to  those  products  of  fancy  akin  to  the  air- 
castles  of  day-dreams  and  to  certain  illusions  caused  through 
fright  or  great  exaltation  of  mind.  Imaginative  ideas  are  re- 
garded by  the  unlettered  as  mere  figments  of  the  mind  not  corre- 
sponding to  any  existing  or  possible  realities.  By  others  the 
imagination  is  considered  as  dealing  solely  with  the  rearrange- 
ment of  memory  ideas,  combining  them  into  new,  but  as  yet 
unexperienced,  products.  The  loose  definition  "  Memory  is  that 
faculty  which  represents  things  as  they  were,  but  imagination 
represents  things  as  they  might  be"  has  dominated  the  thought 
of  those  untrained  in  psychology.  Even  many  of  the  psycholo- 
gists have  dealt  with  the  subject  in  the  same  very  loose  way. 
Teachers  ask  pupils  to  take  imaginary  journeys  to  distant  lands 
to  see  the  manifold  things  which  a  traveller  to  that  country  would 
be  apt  to  see.  They  say  they  are  training  the  imagination  by 
this  means.  When  questioned  they  reveal  that  they  regard  the 
journey  as  imaginative,  probably  because  of  annihilating  so 
completely  space  and  time  and  because  so  Jules  Verne-like  all 
natural  laws  are  disregarded  in  the  imaginary  flight. 

Again,  teachers  believe  they  are  encouraging  the  imagination 
in  the  study  of  literature  when  they  cause  pupils  to  follow  in 
thought  some  extravagant  play  of  fancy  or  when  they  allow  them 
to  let  their  thoughts  go  unrestricted  in  depicting  chaotic,  im- 
possible, and  often  inconsistent  and  senseless  trains  of  ideas. 
The  training  of  the  imagination  in  each  case  is  assumed  to  come 
through  the  transcendence  of  reality  and  through  the  wild  play 
of  ideas.  As  will  be  shown  later,  whatever  training  of  the 

464 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  465 

imagination  there  may  be  in  the  "imaginary  journeys"  and  the 
fairy  tales  comes  from  the  vivid  and  accurate  repicturing  of 
things  formerly  actually  perceived. 

Scientific  View. — A  good  many  psychologists,  while  not  un- 
mindful that  imagination  is  limited  to  the  elements  that  have 
been  experienced  through  sense-perception,  still  regard  the 
imagination  as  exclusively  a  combinative  power.  While  it  is 
a  combinative  power,  the  essence  of  the  faculty  is  its  character- 
istic reproductive  function.  While  the  imagination  may  concern 
itself  with  the  creation  of  air  castles,  its  most  fundamental  form 
is  the  repicturing  of  objects  which  have  actually  been  perceived 
through  sense-perceptions.  While  the  imagination  may  be  of  a 
type  called  creative  the  most  elementary  type  is  the  reproductive 
imagination.  The  creative  type  is  dependent  upon  the  repro- 
ductive type  and  the  difference  between  the  two  is  but  one  of 
degree  and  does  not  involve  fundamentally  different  psychical 
processes. 

A  sensation  may  be  defined  as  the  simplest,  undifferentiated, 
intellectual  process  or  product  arising  from  the  stimulation  of  a 
sensory  nerve.  In  looking  at  a  pencil  you  get  a  sensation  of 
light,  in  touching  it  a  sensation  of  contact,  in  lifting  it  a  sensation 
of  weight,  and  if  you  drop  it  on  the  floor  a  sensation  of  sound  is 
aroused;  perhaps  you  also  receive  a  sensation  of  smell,  and 
should  you  place  it  in  the  mouth  you  would  receive  a  sensation 
of  taste.  Now,  provided  you  are  able  to  say  that  the  sensations 
of  light,  sound,  taste,  smell,  or  weight  come  from  some  object 
you  know  and  whose  position  you  know  with  reference  to  your- 
self, you  have  a  more  complex  psychical  state  than  a  sensation; 
you  have  a  percept.  That  is,  just  as  soon  as  it  becomes  differen- 
tiated from  other  sensations  of  the  same  modality  you  have  some 
definite  knowledge  regarding  the  mental  state  and  its  cause. 
So  we  may  define  perception  as  the  process  of  localizing  sensa- 
tions and  referring  them  to  some  external  cause.  And  similarly 
a  percept  is  the  complex  product  arising  from  the  localizing  of 
sensations  and  referring  them  to  an  external  cause. 

While  the  pencil  was  present  to  any  of  the  senses  the  psychical 


466  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

product  was  termed  a  percept.  Look  away  from  the  pencil 
and  you  now  have  a  picture  of  it.  See  if  you  can  represent  the 
sound  of  it  as  it  fell  to  the  floor;  the  weight  of  it  as  it  lay  in  the 
hand;  or  the  smell  and  taste  of  the  cedar  wood.  'See  if  you  can 
recall  definitely  the  appearance  of  a  silver  dollar.  See  if  you 
can  hear  its  ring  as  it  is  dropped  on  the  table.  These  revived 
pictures  of  the  sight,  sound,  taste,  weight,  etc.,  are  not  percepts, 
because  the  objects  are  not  present  to  any  of  the  senses.  They 
are  copies  of  the  percepts;  fainter  and  not  so  clear  and  vivid  as 
the  percepts.  They  are  termed  images.  Hence  the  definition: 
Images  are  copies  of  percepts.  And  the  process  of  imagination 
should  then  be  defined  as  follows:  Imagination  is  the  process  of 
forming  images.  Or,  it  is  the  process  of  reviving  percepts  in 
the  form  of  images.  Titchener  says:  "Imagination  is  imaging. 
And  imaging  a  thing  is  thinking  of  it  in  kind:  a  tree  is  imaged 
by  a  visual  idea,  a  piano  note  by  an  idea  of  hearing,  running  to 
catch  a  train  by  a  tactual  idea:  the  ideas  are  the  same  in  kind 
as  the  perceptions  which  they  represent.  In  this  sense,  a  mind 
is  more  or  less  'imaginative'  according  as  it  is  better  or  worse 
constituted  to  think  of  things  in  kind:  and  the  primitive  mind— 
the  mind  whose  ideas  are  photographic  copies  of  perceptions — is 
the  most  imaginative  of  all."  *  And  again  he  says:  "The  ideas 
of  the  primitive  mind  are,  as  it  were,  photographic  copies,  life 
likenesses,  of  the  perceptions  which  go  before  them.  Thus  the 
idea  of  a  landscape  would  be  in  part  a  picture-idea,  the  look  of 
stream  and  hills  and  trees;  in  part  a  sound-idea,  the  idea  of 
splashing  water  and  rustling  boughs;  in  part  a  tactual  idea,  the 
'feel'  of  springing  grass  and  moving  wind;  in  part  a  smell-idea, 
a  remembered  freshness  and  fragrance  of  air  and  flowers.  The 
life-likeness  is,  of  course,  never  perfect;  the  idea  is  weaker, 
passes  by  more  quickly,  and  is  more  sketchy,  than  the  perception 
that  corresponds  to  it:  but  the  qualities  of  the  perception  are 
found  again  in  the  [imaged]  idea."  2 

Illustrations. — Many    persons    think    they    imagine    clearly, 
when,  in  fact,  their  imagery  is  very  dull,  or  possibly  lacking 

1  Primer  of  Psychology,  p.  201.  3  Op.  cit.,  p.  122. 


NATURE  OF  IMAGINATION 


467 


Try  to  picture  clearly  through  visual  imagery  your  home  when 
away  from  it;  the  school-house  and  the  church  you  attended 
as  a  child.  See  if  you  can  visualize  your  mother,  your  father, 
a  distant  friend.  Which  is  clearer,  the  image  of  the  persons  as 
you  have  actually  seen  them  or  the  image  of  some  photograph 
of  them?  Why?  The  following  is  a  capital  test  of  visual 
imagery:  Imagine  a  three-inch  cube.  Paint  it  blue.  Imagine 
it  cut  into  inch-cubes.  How  many  cuts  were  necessary  ?  How 
many  cubes?  How  many  cubes  have  no  paint?  How  many 
have  paint  on  one  side  only?  How  many  have  paint  on  two 


FIG.  33. — Tests  for  visual  imagery. 

sides  only  ?  On  three  sides  only  ?  On  four  sides  ?  Draw  from 
memory  the  picture  of  the  print  of  a  dog's  foot  as  it  appears  in 
the  snow  or  mud.  Draw  from  memory  a  hen's  track.  Draw 
from  memory  your  watch  face.  Look  for  a  moment  at  some 
unfamiliar  wall-paper  or  decoration  and  then  turn  away  and 
see  if  you  can  describe  it  or  draw  it.  Look  for  a  moment  at  the 
accompanying  irregular  figure  B,  and  then  turn  away  and 
attempt  to  draw  it. 

Each  of  the  two  figures,  A  and  B,  has  ten  lines,  but  A  can  be 
drawn  much  easier  than  B  because  it  can  be  analyzed  and 
remembered.  B  must  be  imagined  in  order  to  be  reproduced 
quickly. 

Try  to  revive  the  exact  sound  of  a  friend's  voice;  the  sound 
of  the  old  school-bell;  the  music  of  "America"  as  sung  by  a 


468  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

chorus,  as  played  on  a  piano,  on  a  violin,  by  an  orchestra,  or 
by  a  brass  band.  Revive  the  sensations  produced  by  filing  a 
saw,  a  step  on  the  walk,  or  the  splashing  of  water.  If  a  product 
of  imagination,  each  revival  must  be  specific  and  concrete.  It 
is  not  enough  to  know  that  we  have  heard  the  music,  to  feel  that 
we  could  reproduce  it,  or  to  be  sure  that  we  should  recognize 
it,  if  heard.  It  must  be  revived  in  consciousness  so  that  it  is  a 
reproduction  of  what  has  actually  been  experienced  in  sense 
perception.  To  further  test  the  power  of  imagery  try  to  image 
the  odor  of  violets,  roses,  onions,  old  books,  new-mown  hay,  or 
a  clover-field.  How  closely  do  the  images  approximate  reality? 
Try  to  imagine  the  taste  of  pickles,  coffee,  roast  beef.  Without 
looking  at  the  hand  see  if  you  can  feel  a  glove  upon  it.  Think 
of  an  ant  crawling  on  the  back  of  the  neck,  or  a  fly  walking  over 
the  face.  Do  the  images  become  so  real  as  sometimes  to  become 
confused  with  actual  sensations?  How  would  it  feel  to  bite  a 
rusty  nail,  to  touch  a  snake  or  a  sand-bur  ? 

The  student  who  looks  through  the  microscope,  turns  away, 
and  draws  accurately  what  he  has  seen  must  have  a  visual  image 
in  his  mind  of  what  he  has  seen.  The  more  accurately  he  can 
represent  the  object,  the  more  perfect  his  image.  Many  never 
portray  well  what  they  have  seen  because  their  imagery  fades. 
They  are  sometimes  unjustly  accused  of  not  seeing  accurately. 
The  child  who  makes  an  excursion  to  the  field,  forest,  or  quarry, 
and  on  returning  revives  pictures  of  what  he  has  experienced 
is  imaging,  i.  e.,  is  employing  the  imagination.  To  examine  a 
hydrostatic  press,  a  battery,  a  Wheatstone's  bridge,  a  clam,  a 
crystal,  or  a  fern,  and  then  to  recall  exactly  what  has  been  seen 
is  to  imagine.  To  listen  to  a  note  sounded  by  the  director's 
tuning-fork  and  then  hold  it  in  mind  long  enough  to  sound  the 
same  is  to  imagine.  To  examine  the  color  and  texture  of  a 
piece  of  cloth  and  then  go  to  the  store  without  the  sample  and 
match  it  is  to  hold  in  mind  an  image — to  imagine. 

The  musical  composer  must  hear  each  note  as  it  will  sound, 
when  executed.  He  must  differentiate  the  various  parts  and 
hear  each  voice  or  each  instrument  as  it  will  appear  in  the 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  469 

rendition.  In  singing  it  is  necessary  to  image  the  sound  before 
it  is  produced.  Thus  a  train  of  imagery  runs  in  advance  of  the 
actual  rendition.  If  a  discord  should  be  imaged  for  an  instant 
that  discord  would  be  reproduced.  This  is  just  as  certain  as 
that  when  a  bicyclist  thinks  of  an  obstacle  he  is  certain  to  steer 
toward  it.  The  image  is  held  before  the  mind  and  largely 
determines  execution.  The  architect  who  plans  a  building  must 
see  every  part  in  imagination  before  he  constructs  his  drawings. 
The  carpenter  who  builds  without  a  definite  pattern-drawing 
must  see  each  room,  each  door,  each  stairway,  each  pipe  and 
fixture  as  they  will  be  arranged,  if  mistakes  are  to  be  avoided. 
Try  sometime  to  imagine  a  change  in  the  stairway  of  your  house, 
a  change  in  the  roof,  or  the  furnace  and  note  how  definitely  it 
must  all  be  imaged. 

Relations  Between  Memory  and  Imagination. — It  will  be  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  between  imagination  and  memory.  As  we 
shall  more  and  more  come  to  appreciate,  mental  life  is  a  unity 
and  not  made  up  of  entirely  separate  faculties  or  powers;  hence 
memory  and  imagination  will  be  found  to  be  very  closely  related 
forms  of  mental  life.  We  shall  find,  moreover,  that  they  over- 
lap each  other.  In  their  well-marked  higher  stages  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  distinguish  the  two,  but  in  indefinite  stages  they 
will  be  found  to  be  indistinguishable.  Distinguishing  between 
memory  and  imagination,  between  sensation  and  perception, 
between  intellect  and  will  are  much  like  making  exacting  dis- 
tinctions between  plants  and  animals.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to 
determine  to  which  kingdoms  trees  and  horses  belong,  but  when 
we  come  to  sponges  and  the  protozoans  the  task  is  more  difficult 
and  often  even  baffling.  No  one  can  say  that  a  given  sensation 
has  no  element  of  perception  in  it,  nor  in  a  given  percept  can 
one  entirely  separate  the  perceptional  element  from  the  sensa- 
tional. The  difference  between  memory  and  imagination  can 
perhaps  be  better  felt  than  expressed.  In  order  to  understand 
the  differences  each  individual  must  experience  them  for  him- 
self. Certain  hints  may  be  given,  however,  to  enable  the  learner 
to  identify  the  states  in  his  own  consciousness. 


470  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

We  can  image  only  individual  ideas;  not  concepts.  These 
latter  can  be  remembered.  Again,  memory  deals  with  the  past 
only.  Imagination  deals  with  the  past,  present,  or  future.  One 
may  remember  his  yesterday's  dinner.  He  may  also  imagine 
it.  One  may  imagine  the  morrow's  dinner,  but  he  cannot 
remember  it.  He  has  not  experienced  it  and  cannot  therefore 
recall  it.  Imagination  is  simply  a  special  kind  of  recall — in  the 
form  of  images.  As  above  illustrated,  if  you  can  recall  or 
produce  in  mind  an  idea  of  an  object  so  definitely  and  vividly 
that  it  seems  almost  as  if  the  object  were  present,  then  you  have 
an  image.  If  it  is  dim  and  hazy  and  indefinite  you  have  a 
memory. 

Dream  Images  and  Illusions. — The  best  examples  of  imagery 
come  to  us  in  dreams.  We  see  things,  hear  things,  touch  things, 
and  even  taste  and  smell  things  in  such  a  concrete  and  vivid  way 
that  they  seem  real.  For  the  time  they  are  just  as  vivid  as  the 
actual  experiences  would  be.  Temporarily  we  are  deceived 
into  believing  them  real.  Sometimes  similar  phenomena  occur 
in  normal  waking  life.  We  imagine  that  we  see  things,  or  hear 
sounds,  such  as  voices,  bells,  or  the  clock-tick.  We  imagine 
that  we  feel  things  when  there  is  no  stimulation  of  the  sense 
organs.  Usually  there  may  be  a  suggestive  factor  in  some  actual 
sensations,  but  the  images  that  arise  are  very  much  stronger 
than  the  stimulation  would  warrant.  Children,  savages,  and 
superstitious  people  are  liable  to  have  hallucinations  upon  the 
suggestion  of  the  slightest  stimuli.  Darkness  and  lonesome 
places  heighten  the  suggestibility.  As  De  Quincey  says:  "Many 
children  have  a  power  of  painting,  as  it  were,  upon  the  darkness 
all  sorts  of  phantoms." 

Insanity  is  little  else  than  a  species  of  disordered  imagination. 
The  abnormal  mind,  possibly  through  suggestion,  sees  visions, 
hears  voices,  and  feels  touches,  which  in  a  sane  condition  would 
not  be  experienced.  The  hallucination  world  in  which  the  poor 
diseased  mind  lives  is  just  as  real  to  the  one  afflicted  as  the  world 
of  those  unchanged  by  mental  aberration.  The  self  which  the 
unfortunate  peasant  girl  lives  when  her  diseased  brain  deludes 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  471 

her  into  believing  herself  Queen  Victoria  is  no  more  a  counterfeit 
and  a  pretence  to  her  than  the  self  we  deal  in  when  we  go  about 
thinking  of  our  own  supposed  importance,  or  even  when  we  deal 
in  a  more  modest  type  of  self.  No  two  in  normal  life  interpret 
the  external  signs  of  reality  in  the  same  way.  The  child  obtains 
the  same  retinal  pictures  of  the  printed  page  or  the  written  tele- 
gram as  you  and  I  do:  but  how  different  our  interpretations! 
The  telegram  is  a  bit  of  bright  yellow  to  be  admired  by  the  child 
or  the  savage.  To  you  or  me  it  may  mean  supreme  joy  or  the 
depths  of  disconsolation  and  hopeless  melancholy. 

Imaging  and  Thinking.— One  of  the  differences  between  mem- 
ory and  imagination  is  that  concepts  may  be  remembered  but 
not  imaged.  We  retain  the  concept  and  all  the  individual 
notions  that  it  involves,  but  we  cannot  picture  it  as  an  image. 
If  we  image  an  ideal  representation  it  is  particular  and  not 
general.  It  is  a  generic  image  and  not  a  concept.  Some  may 
experience  difficulty  in  apprehending  the  distinction  and  there- 
fore it  will  be  considered  in  some  detail.  It  may  be  asked  in 
what  form  do  we  recall  concepts  and  also  how  it  is  possible  to 
think  of  anything  without  thinking  of  it  in  terms  of  images? 
But  if  one  reflects,  he  will  readily  see  that  when  he  utters  words 
or  hears  them  in  continuous  discourse  even  though  the  words 
refer  to  some  object  of  sense  no  image  of  it  necessarily  comes  into 
consciousness.  The  possibility  of  halting  and  calling  up  the 
images  which  have  been  necessary  in  forming  the  concept  is  not 
denied.  But  all  the  particular  ideas  which  have  entered  into 
the  coalesced  product  seem  to  remain  beneath  the  threshold  of 
consciousness.  The  words  representing  ideas  thoroughly  under- 
stood are  accepted  by  the  mind  as  signs,  and  because  of  the  "  at- 
home-ness"  of  feeling  they  are  passed  by  without  calling  up  their 
detailed  accompaniments. 

The  lower  animals,  undoubtedly,  do  all  their  thinking  in 
sensory  images  or  at  best  in  generic  images.  These  generic 
images  may  be  likened  to  a  composite  photograph.  Such  a 
general  notion  is  in  the  form  of  a  sensory  image  which  embodies 
the  elements  of  each  of  the  individuals  which  have  appeared  to 


472 

be  most  prominent.  They  are  not  necessarily  the  features  most 
essential  in  scientific  classification.  Those  would  be  the  ones 
included  in  a  clarified  concept.  The  generic  image,  though  an 
ideal  representation,  is  a  copy  of  a  combination  of  percepts  and 
is  experienced  in  terms  of  some  of  the  senses.  The  general 
notion  never  appears  in  consciousness  in  this  form.  More- 
over, many  of  the  revivals  of  individual  notions  never  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  a  clear  image.  They  are  vague,  shadowy,  and  hazy. 
If  the  perceptions  have  been  clear  and  vivid,  revivals  have  been 
made  possible,  but  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  image  be  brought 
into  the  focus  of  consciousness.  What  has  been  thoroughly 
cognized  we  readily  recognize  by  the  slightest  symbol,  just  as  when 
fully  acquainted  with  a  person  the  merest  glance  of  a  portion 
of  the  countenance,  some  garment,  the  sound  of  the  voice,  or  the 
walk  are  sufficient  to  make  us  say  mentally,  "Yes,  I  recognize, 
I  apprehend  completely."  Now  we  do  not  think  of  all  the 
characteristics  one  by  one,  and  we  do  not  think  of  the  person  in 
all  his  varying  moods,  nor  under  all  the  circumstances  in  which 
we  have  seen  him.  These  we  feel  confident  of  being  able  to 
picture  if  necessary.  But  there  is  an  "at-home-ness"  in  the 
mental  mood,  which  removes  the  necessity  for  further  detailed 
picturing.  This  is  a  case  of  what  is  termed  by  Stout  "implicit 
apprehension"  of  the  meaning  of  words.  He  says  that  "The 
mental  state  which  we  call  understanding  the  meaning  0}  a  word 
need  not  involve  any  distinction  of  the  multiplicity  of  parts 
belonging  to  the  object  signified  by  it.  To  bring  this  multiplic- 
ity before  consciousness  in  its  fulness  and  particularity  would 
involve  the  imaging  of  objects  with  their  sensory  qualities,  visual, 
auditory,  tactual,  etc.  But  it  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  in 
ordinary  discourse  the  understanding  of  the  import  of  a  word  is 
something  quite  distinct  from  having  a  mental  image  suggested 
by  the  word."  l  And  in  the  same  connection  he  writes:  "It  is 
certainly  possible  to  think  of  a  whole  in  its  unity  and  dis- 
tinctness without  discerning  all  or  even  any  of  its  component 
details." 

1  Analytic  Psychology,  I,  p.  79. 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  473 

The  same  facts  were  long  ago  pointed  out  by  Burke,  who 
erroneously  concluded  that  there  arises  in  the  mind  no  idea  of 
the  things  represented  by  the  words — merely  sounds  "without 
any  annexed  notions."  He  says  further:  "Nobody,  I  believe, 
immediately  on  hearing  the  sounds,  virtue,  liberty,  or  honor, 
conceives  any  precise  notions  of  the  particular  modes  of  action 
and  thinking  ...  for  which  these  words  are  substituted.  .  .  . 
I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  most  general  effect,  even  of  these 
words,  does  not  arise  from  their  forming  pictures  of  the  several 
things  they  would  represent  in  the  imagination;  because,  on  a 
very  diligent  examination  of  my  own  mind,  and  getting  others 
to  consider  theirs,  I  do  not  find  that  once  in  twenty  times  any 
such  picture  is  formed,  and,  when  it  is,  there  is  most  commonly 
a  particular  effort  of  the  imagination  for  that  purpose.  .  •.  . 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible,  in  the  rapidity  and  quick  succession  of 
words  in  conversation,  to  have  ideas  both  of  the  sound  of  the 
word  and  of  the  thing  represented."  l 

To  those  who  have  been  used  to  believing  that  all  their  think- 
ing is  done  in  terms  of  sensory  imagery,  the  question  arises  as 
to  the  form  in  which  this  imageless  thought  is  carried  on.  The 
question  is  a  very  pertinent  one.  Each  one  can  perhaps  best 
feel  the  answer  for  himself.  The  process  involved  almost  eludes 
description.  But  one  who  will  carefully  and  persistently  try 
to  catch  himself  in  the  act  of  apprehending  terms  which  are 
rapidly  passed  over  will  be  satisfied  that  imageless  apprehension 
is  not  impossible.  Burke  concluded  that  much  of  our  thinking 
is  imageless,  but  further  erroneously  concluded  that  we  have  no 
"notion"  in  our  minds  of  the  objects  signified  by  the  words. 
Such  words  are,  he  said,  mere  sounds.  To  this  it  cannot  be 
agreed.  The  word  is  the  sign  by  which  we  recognize  that  we 
have  a  background  of  knowledge  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  call 
up  in  form  of  an  image  but  which  may  be  so  called  up  at  will. 
Nor  is  it  necessary  to  call  up  all  images  and  individual  notions 
that  have  been  involved  in  forming  the  concept.  We  must  be 
able  to  distinguish  a  given  notion  from  other  objects  or  notions, 

1  Quoted  by  Stout,  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  81. 


474  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

and,  as  Stout  says,  this  power  of  distinguishing  the  appre- 
hended object  from  other  objects  "is  all  that  is  necessarily 
implied  in  the  imageless  apprehension,  which  is  sufficient  to 
constitute  the  psychical  state  called  understanding  the  meaning 
o}  a  word."  1 

Lotze  says:  "When  we  have  listened  to  a  poem  recited,  to  a 
melody  sung,  and  forget  the  words  and  the  tones,  while  yet  all 
that  was  in  them  lives  on  in  an  abiding  mood  of  our  soul;  when 
we  first  send  our  glance  over  the  scattered  details  of  a  landscape, 
and  then,  after  the  definite  outlines  have  long  disappeared  from 
our  memory,  still  preserve  an  indelible  impression,  we  make 
combination  and  fusion  of  the  myriads  of  details  into  the  whole 
of  supersensible  intuition;  which  we  but  reluctantly  again 
analyze  into  its  constituent  parts  in  order  to  communicate  it  to 
others."  2 

The  latest  and  best  discussion  of  this  phase  of  the  subject  is 
by  Betts,  who  derives  his  conclusions  from  abundant  experi- 
mental evidence  rather  than  from  a  priori  reasoning.3  He 
believes  that  the  amount  of  definite  imagery  in  ordinary  mental 
processes  has  been  entirely  overestimated.  He  rightly  intimates 
that  we  need  more  investigation  of  spontaneous  imagery.  Most 
investigations  of  imagination  have  dealt  with  the  voluntary  types. 
Some  of  the  conclusions  can  be  given  best  in  Betts's  own  words: 
"It  is  evident  that  most  persons  can  command  a  far  wider  range 
and  greater  profusion  of  imagery  than  they  normally  employ. 
.  .  .  The  most  efficient  and  successful  thinking,  at  least  of  a  logi- 
cal and  abstract  nature,  is  with  most  persons  accompanied  by  the 
least  imagery.  Thinking  can  and  does  go  on  without  the  inter- 
vention of  imagery,  the  mental  content  being  made  up  of  feelings 
of  meaning,  relation,  intention,  effort,  identity,  interest,  pleasure, 
displeasure,  etc.  Imagery  may  and  often  does  serve  as  a 
familiar  background  for  the  meaning  with  which  we  are  dealing, 


1  Op.  dt.,  I,  p.  84. 

2  Lotze's  Microcosmus,  English  translation,  I,  p.  635. 

3  "The   Distribution  and   Functions  of  Mental   Imagery,"   Columbia   Uni- 
versity Contributions  to  Education,  No.  26. 


NATURE  OF  IMAGINATION  475 

but  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  essential  to  meaning,  except  to  the 
extent  that  meaning  may  inhere  in  a  given  percept  as  such,  e.  g., 
the  meaning  of  a  beautiful  sunset  is  chiefly  this  same  beautiful 
sunset.  .  .  .  Very  much  of  memory  is  accomplished  without  the 
use  of  imagery,  and  much  of  the  imagery  which  accompanies 
memory  is  of  no  advantage  to  it.  The  'memory  image,'  used  as 
a  general  term  to  cover  all  memory  stuff  is  a  fiction."  * 

Nervous  Processes  and  Imagination. — It  has  been  shown  that 
images  may  be  so  vividly  revived  or  produced  as  to  create  illu- 
sions. We  are  sometimes  deceived  into  believing  that  such  ex- 
periences are  perceptions  of  the  objective  realities.  So  strongly 
do  the  mental  states  resemble  the  perceptions  of  the  same 
thing  that  we  may  experience  fatigue  from  their  continuance. 
This  occurs  in  dreams  where  we  believe  that  we  are  actively 
exerting  ourselves;  as  in  running,  lifting,  resisting,  and  the  like. 
Sometimes  we  awaken  completely  exhausted  by  the  apparent 
activity,  when  in  actuality  we  have  not  stirred.  We  may  produce 
the  illusions  of  motor  activity  and  its  attendant  fatigue  in  the 
classical  illustration  of  crooking  the  finger  as  if  to  fire  a  pistol, 
while  in  reality  not  moving  a  muscle.  Now,  the  explanation  of 
all  this  is  that  it  is  the  process  of  innervation  that  exhausts,  not 
the  actual  muscular  labor.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  work  it  is 
not  the  muscle  which  becomes  fatigued  but  the  brain  centre 
controlling  it.  In  hypnotism  a  patient  is  made  to  believe,  for 
example,  that  he  has  been  burned.  He  feels  the  pain  exactly 
as  if  it  were  real.  More  wonderful  still  the  blister  sometimes 
actually  forms.  This  means  that  centres  which  control  the  blood 
supply  have  become  so  thoroughly  affected  as  to  change  the 
amount  of  nutrition  to  that  part.  The  explanation  why  no  blood 
follows  the  thrust  of  a  hat  pin  through  the  cheek  or  the  hand  in 
certain  hypnotic  performances  is  also  not  far  to  seek.  All  this 
indicates  that  the  same  processes  which  are  excited  peripherally, 
as  the  seeing,  hearing,  burning,  etc.,  in  normal  perception,  are 
in  imagination  set  up  internally.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 

1  The  reader  should  also  consult  Woodworth,  "Imageless  Thought,"  Journal 
of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific  Method,  vol.  III. 


476  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

in  imagination  exactly  the  same  sort  of  neural  transformations 
occur  as  in  sensation.  The  only  difference  is  in  their  origin. 
There  is  nothing  strange  about  all  this  if  we  recall  what  was  said 
in  connection  with  habit,  association,  and  memory.  Any  change 
once  initiated  in  the  nervous  system  tends  to  persist  and  on  the 
recurrence  of  adequate  stimuli  tends  to  function  in  precisely 
the  same  way  as  in  the  original  stimulation.  The  doctrine  of 
association  has  sufficiently  demonstrated  that  adequate  stimuli 
may  come  from  a  train  of  thought  to  set  up  other  trains  of  thought. 
Every  one,  even  untrained  in  psycho-physics,  will  tell  you  that 
one  idea  suggests  another.  Now  why  may  not  one  functional 
brain  process  stimulate  another  functional  brain  process  ?  This 
must  be  accepted  if  we  acknowledge  the  facts  of  the  physiologi- 
cal basis  of  association  and  the  doctrine  of  psycho-physical 
parallelism. 

The  effect  upon  the  nervous  system  of  reproducing  ideas  in 
imagination  is  of  the  same  kind  as  in  perception  with  the  object 
acting  as  a  stimulus,  the  only  difference  being  that  in  normal 
life  a  more  intense  activity  is  usually  caused  by  perception  than 
by  an  imagination  of  the  same  object.  According  to  Bain,  in 
imagination  "the  renewed  feeling  [state]  occupies  the  very  same 
parts,  and  in  the  same  manner,  as  the  original  feeling,  and  no 
other  parts  nor  in  any  other  assignable  manner."  l  Ribot,  in 
commenting  upon  this,  writes:  "To  give  a  striking  example: 
experiment  shows  that  the  persistent  idea  of  a  brilliant  color 
fatigues  the  optic  nerve.  We  know  that  the  perception  of  a 
colored  object  is  often  followed  by  a  consecutive  sensation  which 
shows  us  the  object  with  the  same  outline,  but  in  a  comple- 
mentary color.  It  may  be  the  same  in  the  memory.  It  leaves, 
although  with  less  intensity,  a  consecutive  image.  If  with  closed 
eyes  we  keep  before  the  imagination  a  bright-colored  figure  for  a 
long  time,  and  then  suddenly  open  the  eyes  upon  a  white  surface, 
we  may  see  for  an  instant  the  imaginary  object  with  a  comple- 
mentary color.  This  fact,  noted  by  Wundt,  from  whom  we 
borrow  it,  proves  that  the  nervous  process  is  the  same  in  both 

1  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  p.  358. 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  477 

cases — in  perception  and  in  remembrance."  '  While  James 
believes  that  cases  are  rarities  in  which  the  sense  organ  is  affected 
through  the  imagination,  yet  he  admits  that  the  imagination- 
process  can  pass  over  into  the  sensation-process  and  that  the 
former  differs  from  the  latter  by  its  intensity  rather  than  by  the 
regions  affected. 

"  Jendrdssik  and  Krafft-Ebing  obtained  marks  like  burns  on 
their  subjects  by  means  of  suggestion.  If  some  object,  such  as 
a  match-box,  a  pair  of  scissors,  a  snuff-box,  a  linen-stamp,  etc., 
was  pressed  upon  the  skin,  and  the  subject  was  at  the  same  time 
told  that  the  skin  was  being  burned,  a  blister  in  the  form  of  the 
object  resulted.  The  marks  remained  a  long  time  visible.  .  .  . 
Burns  caused  by  suggestion  have  often  been  observed  in  the 
Salpe'triere."  Bleeding  of  the  nose  and  of  the  skin  was  also 
caused  by  suggestion.  "When  the  skin  had  been  rubbed  with  a 
blunt  instrument  in  order  to  give  point  to  the  suggestion,  bleed- 
ing of  the  skin  is  said  to  have  appeared  at  command,  the  traces 
of  which  were  visible  three  months  later."  Delboeuf  and  others 
experimented  in  producing  burns.  In  addition  he  made  one  of 
the  wounds  painless  by  suggestion.  "It  was  observed  in  this 
case  that  the  painless  wound  showed  much  greater  tendency  to 
heal,  and,  in  particular,  that  the  inflammation  showed  no 
tendency  to  spread."  Mantegazza  claims  that  he  has  been  able 
to  "induce  local  reddening  of  the  skin  simply  by  thinking 
intently  of  the  spot."2  "Charming"  away  warts  and  other 
affections  then  seem  entirely  possible  under  extreme  conditions. 
It  is  not  the  hocus-pocus  of  tying  up  nine  pebbles,  placing  them  in 
a  linen  sack,  swinging  the  sack  five  times  to  the  left,  and  then 
four  times  to  the  right,  around  the  head,  and  finally  throwing  the 
sack  on  a  thorn  bush  that  takes  away  the  wart.  But  it  is  entirely 
possible  that  the  thought  concentrated  upon  the  warty  region 
may  have  affected  the  blood  supply  to  that  part  and  thus  reduced 
the  wart. 

Children's  Imagination. — Children  are  very  imaginative. 
They  live  in  a  world  of  imagery  and  fancy.  In  the  early  period 

1  Diseases  of  Memory,  p.  20.          a  Moll,  Hypnotism,  pp.  131,  132,  134,  306. 


478  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

of  their  lives  their  thinking  is  carried  on  by  means  of  images 
as  instruments  of  thought.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  pre- 
linguistic  age.  With  the  acquisition  of  speech  the  processes  of 
generalized  or  conceptual  thinking,  previously  effected  through 
generic  images,  are  now  accomplished  through  the  instrumental- 
ity of  words  and  abstract  symbols.  But  throughout  childhood, 
while  sense-perceptions  are  relatively  stronger  than  any  other 
process,  all  forms  of  sense-imagery  are  very  vivid.  So  vivid 
are  the  child's  imaginations,  and  so  little  reflective  is  he,  that 
illusions  are  easily  created.  The  child  is  extremely  suggestible, 
i.  e.,  he  easily  seizes  upon  the  merest  sign  and  through  his  vivid 
imagery  builds  up  creations  which  would  not  appear  to  the  more 
mature.  Careful  studies  have  been  made  on  the  suggestibility 
of  children.  It  has  been  found  that  children  can  be  caused  to 
imagine  that  they  see  things,  hear  things,  smell,  taste,  and  touch 
things  that  have  no  objective  existence.  The  word  or  some 
sign  is  sufficient  to  arouse  the  brain  centre  controlling  the  par- 
ticular function.1  The  degree  of  suggestibility  is  greatest  in 
the  first  grade  and  decreases  with  age.  That  is,  imaginative 
products  are  much  more  often  mistaken  for  real  perceptions 
in  early  childhood  than  in  later  life. 

The  vividness  of  visual  imagery  decreases  after  early  child- 
hood is  past  up  to  the  age  of  maturity.  To  quote  Sir  Francis 
Galton:  "The  power  of  visualizing  is  higher  in  the  female  sex 
than  in  the  male,  and  is  somewhat,  but  not  much,  higher  in 
public-school  boys  than  in  men.  After  maturity  is  reached  the 
further  advance  of  age  does  not  seem  to  dull  the  faculty,  but  rather 
the  reverse,  judging  from  numerous  statements  to  that  effect; 
but  advancing  years  are  sometimes  accompanied  by  a  growing 
habit  of  hard  abstract  thinking,  and  in  these  cases — not  uncom- 
mon among  those  whom  I  have  questioned — the  faculty  un- 
doubtedly becomes  impaired.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that 
it  is  very  high  in  very  young  children,  who  seem  to  spend  years 
of  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  the  subjective  and  objec- 
tive world.  Language  and  book-learning  certainly  tend  to 

1  Small,  "  Suggestibility  of  Children,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  4  :  176-220. 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  479 

dull  it."  l  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  power  of  visual 
imagery  becomes  less  vivid  with  advancing  years  and  growing 
intellectuality  because  of  disuse  of  that  particular  kind  of  thought- 
instrument.  Better  modes  of  thinking  are  acquired  and  the 
slow,  cumbersome,  old  process  is  short-circuited.  We  have  no 
statistics  to  show  that  images  derived  through  the  other  senses 
become  less  distinct  with  advancing  years.  But  probably  a 
similar  change  occurs  in  hearing.  Auditory  images  become  less 
necessary  as  conveyancers  of  thought  with  progress  in  language 
and  abstract  thinking. 

This  child-world  is  not  a  product  of  creative  imagination,  but 
one  of  reproductive  imagination.  Through  imitation  the  child 
reproduces  the  world  which  he  sees  about  him.  His  cosmos  is 
a  reflection  of  the  experiences  he  has  been  able  to  drink  in.  I 
have  no  evidence  that  there  are  great  flights  of  fancy  in  which 
unexperienced  scenes  and  situations  are  marshalled  together. 
The  child  plays  with  dolls  and  although  these,  often  crude  objects, 
are  imaginatively  made  instinct  with  life,  yet  the  child  does  with 
them  and  has  them  do  only  what  she  has  seen  her  mother  or  the 
nurse  do  with  the  baby.  The  little  mischiefs  play  school  and 
in  so  doing  impersonate  different  individuals.  One  assumes  the 
role  of  teacher  while  the  others  are  pupils.  The  play-pupils 
(imitatively)  sit  obedient  to  the  dictates  of  the  teacher  with  now 
and  then  an  (imitative)  infraction  of  the  rules.  They  are  pun- 
ished in  an  approved  (imitative)  fashion,  /.  e.,  in  the  fashion  set 
by  the  real  teacher  of  their  acquaintance.  They  seldom  assume 
roles  not  imitative.  Sully  says  that  the  "impulse  to  invent 
imaginary  surroundings"  is  very  common.  In  fact,  he  de- 
nominates all  plays  which  are  dominated  by  the  imagination  as 
creative  or  inventive.  Through  my  own  personal  observations 
I  am  not  able  to  confirm  this  position.  Moreover,  I  have  failed 
to  find  in  all  of  Sully's  or  Baldwin's  examples  of  imagination  any 
that  give  evidence  of  much,  if  any,  inventiveness  on  the  part  of 
the  children.  In  childish  lies  we  have  some  invention  for  the 
purpose  of  avoiding  consequences,  but  during  play  the  child  is 

1  Gallon,  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  p.  99. 


480  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

attempting  to  mirror  truthfully  the  world  as  he  understands  it 
To  be  sure,  the  child  builds  perfect  products  from  the  crudest 
materials;  a  stick  or  a  chair  or  his  own  body  seem  equally  well 
adapted  to  be  transformed  into  a  dashing  steed.  There  are  no 
obstacles  between  the  raw  material  and  the  flawless  product. 
His  inventive  powers  are  little  taxed  in  the  transformation.  He 
pictures  a  desired  end  and  presto!  it  is  secured. 

In  playing  with  her  dolls  the  little  girl,  though  living  a  life 
which  she  knows  is  make-believe,  is  a  faithful  imitator  of  the 
mother  or  nurse.  A  little  mother  of  four  summers  was  heard 
to  say:  "Oh  mercy!  baby  must  have  a  clean  dress  on;  but  all 
are  in  the  wash.  Does  you  want  your  cloak  on,  too?"  When 
a  child  harnesses  the  chairs,  calls  them  horses,  and  makes  him- 
self the  driver,  he  imitates  very  closely  the  actions  of  the  real 
driver,  whom  he  has  seen.  A  child  who  has  never  seen  eques- 
trians will  never  ride  an  imaginary  broomstick  horse.  A  boy 
whose  father  had  a  lariat  and  used  it  in  lassoing  horses  was 
continually  seen  with  a  noosed  rope  playing  at  the  capture  of 
animals. 

Because  of  the  vivid  manner  in  which  children  image  things, 
a  caution  needs  to  be  given  against  telling  the  child  things  which 
will  be  magnified  into  terrorizing  objects.  All  stories  of  the 
bad  man,  the  bogie,  big  bear  that  will  catch  you,  wolves,  tramps, 
robbers,  future  punishment,  etc.,  should  be  scrupulously  avoided. 
Many  children  are  made  timid  and  retiring  throughout  life 
because  of  injudicious  stories  of  bogie-men,  spooks,  etc.  If  the 
child  could  understand  that  they  are  fictions  he  would  not  be 
so  troubled,  but  imagination  becomes  belief  and  often  a  belief 
haunts  one  as  a  life-long  spectre.  In  this  connection  proper  cau- 
tion should  be  observed  in  telling  children,  even  about  such 
harmless  and  well-disposed  genii  as  Kris  Kringle  or  Santa  Claus. 
The  good  fairies  and  Santa  Claus  should  never  be  represented 
to  be  dwelling  too  near,  as  for  example  in  the  chimney  or  behind 
the  house  or  under  the  bed.  Let  them  be  the  good  men,  away 
off.  I  have  seen  my  child  G.  come  to  me  all  agitated,  trembling, 
and  apparently  in  great  mental  agony  because  a  servant  told  her 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  481 

that  Santa  Claus  was  in  the  kitchen  chimney.  She  was  not  a 
skittish  child,  had  never  been  afraid  of  the  dark,  and  had  never 
been  frightened  by  being  told  of  bogie-men  and  spooks.  The 
child  only  too  readily  peoples  with  imaginary  creatures  all  dark 
corners  and  the  space  behind  and  beyond  things.  One  writer 
says:  "When  I  was  a  child  and  we  played  hide  and  seek  in  the 
barn,  I  always  felt  that  there  must  or  might  be  behind  every 
bundle  of  straw,  and  especially  in  the  corners,  something  un- 
heard of  lying  hidden." 

Children  are  very  animistic  and  often,  like  the  savage,  imagine 
inanimate  nature  endowed  with  life.  The  savage  heard  the 
voice  of  nature  talk  to  him  with  tongues  understood  only  by  the 
primitive  mind;  the  child  recapitulating  the  race  history  under- 
stands those  same  voices.  The  poet,  like  the  child  and  the  sav- 
age, penetrates  what  is  invisible  to  ordinary  mortals,  and  is 
cognizant  of  the  same  unseen  powers.  These  he  discloses  to  us 
through  his  versifications.  To  the  ordinary  mind  these  voices 
become  hushed  through  the  complex  of  psychic  influences 
necessary  to  mature  existence.  A  careful  canvass  of  many 
children's  ideas  concerning  streams  and  bodies  of  water  secured 
thousands  of  replies  in  the  same  strain  as  the  accompanying: 
F.,  12  :*  "I  think  of  water  as  a  person;  it  seems  as  if  it  could 
talk."  F.,  15:  "The  ocean  seems  as  if  it  had  life  like  a  roaring 
lion."  F.,  13:  "The  ocean  always  seems  to  be  planning  some 
wrong."  F.,  5^:  Was  sailing  a  boat;  the  string  broke  and 
the  boat  went  sailing  away.  She  said:  "Water,  if  you  don't 
bring  back  that  boat  I'll  tell  mamma."  Another  time  she  was 
heard  to  say  to  the  brook :  "  I  wonder  where  you  go  to  ?  Do  you 
ever  get  tired?  I  know  I  should."  F. :  "I  used  to  think  the 
river  had  life,  but  different  from  ours;  it  was  always  a  puzzle 
to  me."  F.,  17:  "I  used  to  imagine  the  water  had  life;  I  knew 
that  it  really  hadn't,  but  I  liked  to  think  it  had  and  that  it  was 
like  a  person."  F.,  18:  "When  a  child  I  frequently  thought 
the  brook  had  life  and  was  talking  as  it  rippled  over  its  stony 
bed."  F.,  30:  "I  am  happier  in  the  instinctive  feeling  that 

1  F  =  female.     M  =  male. 


482  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

water  has  a  kinship  of  life  with  me,  than  when  I  am  under  the 
domination  of  reason  concerning  such  things." 

Jean  Ingelow  confirms  in  her  own  experience  my  investiga- 
tions. When  about  two  or  three  years  old  "I  had  the  habit," 
she  writes,1  "of  attributing  intelligence  not  only  to  all  living 
creatures,  the  same  amount  and  kind  of  intelligence  that  I  had 
myself,  but  even  to  stones  and  manufactured  articles.  I  used 
to  feel  how  dull  it  must  be  for  the  pebbles  in  the  causeway  to  be 
obliged  to  lie  still  and  only  see  what  was  round  about.  When 
I  walked  out  with  a  little  basket  for  putting  flowers  in  I  used 
sometimes  to  pick  up  a  pebble  or  two  and  carry  them  on  to  have 
a  change;  then  at  the  farthest  point  of  the  walk  turn  them  out, 
not  doubting  that  they  would  be  pleased  to  have  a  new  view." 
Sully  says  that  through  imagination  "the  child  sees  what  we 
regard  as  lifeless  and  soulless,  as  alive  and  conscious.  Thus 
he  gives  not  only  body  but  soul  to  the  wind  when  it  whistles  or 
howls  at  night.  The  most  unpromising  things  come  in  for  this 
warming,  vitalizing  touch  of  the  child's  fancy.  .  .  .  Thus  one 
little  fellow  aged  one  year  and  eight  months  conceived  a  spe- 
cial fondness  for  the  letter  W,  addressing  it  thus:  'Dear  old 
boy  W.'"2 

Imagination  and  Belief. — It  is  perfectly  possible  that  in  the 
savage  imagination  may  pass  over  into  belief.  Apparitions 
which  arise  through  superstitions  may  be  as  real  to  him  as  any 
existent  realities.  But  he  is  led  to  the  belief  through  supersti- 
tious faith  in  authority  rather  than  from  sense  illusions.  The 
belief  causes  the  illusory  images  rather  than  vice  versa.  These 
fanciful  creations  then  arise  at  the  merest  suggestion  because 
the  ideas  do  not  antagonize  the  comparatively  simple  mental 
system.  They  readily  accept  the  authority  of  superstition  and 
personify  inanimate  objects,  believe  in  incantations,  sorcery,  etc. 
But  it  is  largely  because  of  the  great  weight  of  a  mass  of  tradi- 
tion. In  the  same  way  children  who  are  so  imaginative  may 
easily  accept  superstitions  and  come  even  to  confound  fantasy 

1  "The  History  of  Infancy,"  Longman's  Magazine,  Feb.,  1890. 

2  Studies  of  Childhood,  p.  30. 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  483 

with  reality.  If  children  continually  are  told  fairy  stories  as 
facts,  and  superstitions  are  doled  out  as  realities,  they  may  be 
easily  led  to  confound  fact  and  fiction.  But  if  fairy  stories  are 
told  as  fairy  stories  and  children  are  always  dealt  with  honestly, 
they  have  little  tendency  to  self-deception  concerning  the  play 
of  their  fancy.  It  need  not  be  feared  that  children's  enjoyment 
is  a  whit  curtailed  by  treating  their  fairy  stories  as  fictitious 
creations.  They  often  design  the  most  fantastic  creations  and 
play  the  leading  r61e  in  the  drama,  and  when  they  notice  that  they 
are  being  watched  in  a  quizzical  way  they  suddenly  burst  out 
laughing  and  implore  you  not  to  observe  them.  You  desist  and 
the  play  is  resumed.  They  are  merely  acting  and  they  realize  it 
perhaps  as  fully  as  any  comedian  or  tragedian.  Although  a  good 
actor  works  up  to  a  great  degree  the  mental  states  he  assumes 
no  one  in  impersonation  ever  lost  his  identity  and  did  things  or 
believed  things  out  of  harmony  with  his  real  self.1  Their  belief 
of  the  things  to  be  imagined  does  not  enter  in  as  a  factor.  As 
Stout  puts  the  case:  "To  imagine  is  simply  to  think  of  an  object, 
without  believing,  disbelieving,  or  doubting  its  existence."  2 

If  the  creations  of  imagination  are  real  to  the  child,  why  does 
he  allow  the  same  objective  stimuli  to  suggest  such  kaleidoscopic 
scenes?  One  minute  his  blocks  are  called  a  house,  the  next  a 
steam  engine,  again  a  fence,  and  still  again  in  the  same  brief 
play  period  a  hospital,3  and  at  any  moment  only  blocks.  Why 
is  the  doll  so  neglected  if  it  is  thought  to  be  a  reality?  The  real 
baby  is  not  accorded  doll-treatment.  The  little  maid  of  five 
years,  through  a  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  trust  confided 
to  her  by  the  care  of  her  little  baby  brother,  will  not  leave  him, 
but  throws  her  dolly  to  the  floor  at  any  moment  and  runs  to  play 
with  something  momentarily  more  attractive.  My  little  girl 
of  five  came  in  one  day  and  cried  because  her  younger  brother 
would  not  let  her  doll  sleep.  I  said,  "Can  your  doll  hear?" 

1  Long-continued  belief,  even  in  imaginary  ideas,  undoubtedly  greatly  affects 
the  individual,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  chapter  on  the  emotions. 
3  Analytic  Psychology,  II,  p.  260. 
8  I  witnessed  such  a  rapid  transformation  just  before  writing  this 


484  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

"No,  but  I  play  it  can,"  she  promptly  replied.  It  seems  to  me 
that  her  complaint  was  because  he  was  disturbing  the  harmony 
of  the  imagined  situation  and  spoiling  her  pleasure.  In  play  the 
mind  seeks  to  contemplate  only  that  which  excites  pleasurable 
emotions.  It  rigorously  rejects  everything  inharmonious  with 
the  pleasurable  situations.  In  day-dreams  we  do  the  same 
thing.  We  studiously  avoid  harboring  anything  disagreeable. 
At  the  same  time  we  are  cognizant  that  the  imagery  is  merely 
a  dream.  In  sleep  we  often  do  the  same  thing.  It  is  not 
probable  that  the  child  has  a  firm  belief  that  the  objects  of  nat- 
ure are  animate.  It  is  merely  a  play  of  the  imagination  which 
carries  the  child  into  a  suprasensuous  world  and  produces  a 
quasi  illusion  which  causes  him  to  make  believe  that  life-like 
qualities  exist.  It  is  merely  a  personification  which  in  exceed- 
ingly strong  imaginative  natures  causes  the  apparent  likeness 
to  approximate  the  reality  experienced  in  the  dream  state.  It 
may  be  that  in  children  the  dream  state  is  regarded  as  a  real 
experience,  but  in  adults  the  dream  state  even  at  the  time  is 
frequently  known  to  be  only  a  dream.  Of  course,  one  can  very 
easily  convert  the  imagination  into  beliefs.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  thought  of  the  bogie-man  and  many  ideas  that  we  call 
superstitions.  Ghost  stories  readily  create  a  firm  belief  in 
ghosts.  Many  people  undoubtedly  see  ghosts  as  really  as  they 
see  the  house  in  which  they  live. 

Limitations  of  the  Imagination. — The  imagination  is  limited 
to  the  use  of  materials  already  in  the  mind.  Sense-perception 
must  furnish  the  elements,  the  raw  material,  out  of  which  the 
imaginative  product  is  produced.  This  is  true  in  the  case  of 
the  highest  creative  imagination,  as  well  as  in  the  lowest  form 
of  mechanical  combination.  It  may  be  stated  as  a  law  that  no 
product  can  be  imagined,  the  elements  of  which  have  not  been 
experienced  in  sense- perception.  The  congenitally  blind  cannot 
imagine  color,  nor  the  congenitally  deaf  imagine  sound.  Among 
the  blind  it  has  been  found  that  those  who  become  blind  before 
the  age  of  six  or  seven  never  dream  of  colors,  while  those  de- 
prived of  sight  at  a  later  age  frequently  have  dreams  in  which 


NATURE  OF  IMAGINATION  485 

color  is  a  factor.  The  necessity  for  sense-elements  out  of  which 
to  construct  the  new  picture  is  well  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  a  writer  of  the  most  vivid  imagination.  In  a  visit 
to  Mr.  Morritt,  Scott  said  to  his  host  with  reference  to  some 
facts  which  he  had  given  to  Scott:  "  You  have  given  me  materials 
for  romance:  now  I  want  a  good  robber's  cave,  and  an  old 
church  of  the  right  sort."  "We  rode  out,"  says  Mr.  Morritt, 
"and  he  found  what  he  wanted  in  the  ancient  slate  quarries  of 
Brignal  and  the  ruined  abbey  of  Eggleston.  I  observed  him 
noting  down  even  the  peculiar  little  wild  flowers  and  herbs  that 
accidentally  grew  round  and  on  the  side  of  a  bold  crag  near  his 
intended  cave  of  Guy  Denzil;  and  could  not  help  saying  that, 
as  he  was  not  to  be  on  oath  in  his  work,  daisies,  violets,  and 
primroses  would  be  as  poetical  as  any  of  the  humbler  plants  he 
was  examining.  I  laughed,  in  short,  at  his  scrupulousness; 
but  I  understood  him  when  he  replied,  that  in  nature  herself 
no  two  scenes  were  exactly  alike,  and  that  whoever  copied  truly 
what  was  before  his  eyes,  would  possess  the  same  variety  in  his 
descriptions,  and  exhibit  apparently  an  imagination  as  bound- 
less as  the  range  of  nature  in  the  scenes  he  recorded;  whereas 
whoever  trusted  to  [constructive  and  not  accurate,  reproductive] 
imagination  would  soon  find  his  own  mind  circumscribed,  and 
contracted  to  a  few  favorite  images,  and  the  repetition  of  these 
would  sooner  or  later  produce  that  very  monotony  and  barren- 
ness, which  had  always  haunted  descriptive  poetry  in  the  hands 
of  any  but  the  patient  worshippers  of  truth."  1 

The  foregoing  also  illustrates  the  fact  that  in  the  best  imagina- 
tive literature,  the  finest  descriptions  contain  more  of  truth  than 
of  fiction.  The  salient  characteristics  which  have  been  selected 
for  the  scene  characterized  must  be  true  to  life.  It  is  said  that 
Scott's  characters  "are  felt  by  those  who  are  well  acquainted 
with  the  Scottish  life  of  the  past  to  be  so  intensely  natural  that 
every  one  of  them  might  have  been  a  real  character.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  the  best  of  Dickens's  and  of  Thackeray's  imag- 
inary constructions,  in  which  these  great  humorists  have  so 

1  Carpenter,  Mental  Physiology,  p.  492. 


486  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

completely  identified  themselves,  as  it  were,  with  the  several 
types  they  delineated,  as  to  make  each  of  them  speak  and  act 
as  he  (or  she)  would  have  done  in  actual  life.  It  is  certain, 
indeed,  that  most  of  these  (as  in  Walter  Scott's  case)  are  devel- 
opments of  actual  types;  while  those  which  are  purely  ideal— 
the  work  of  the  creative  rather  than  of  the  constructive  imagina- 
tion— lack  'flesh  and  blood'  reality."1  Burroughs  wrote  of 
Tennyson:  "A  lady  told  me  that  she  was  once  walking  with 
him  in  the  fields  when  they  came  to  a  spring  that  bubbled  up 
through  shifting  sands  in  a  very  pretty  manner,  and  Tennyson, 
in  order  to  see  exactly  how  the  spring  behaved,  got  down  on  his 
hands  and  knees  and  peered  a  long  time  into  the  water.  The 
incident  is  worth  repeating,  as  showing  how  intently  a  great 
poet  studies  nature."  After  knowing  these  habits  of  the  great 
poet  we  can  readily  understand  why  he  could  pen  such  an 
exact  simile  in  the  lines: 

".   .   .  arms  on  which  the  standing  muscle  sloped, 
As  slopes  a  wild  brook  o'er  a  little  stone, 
Running  too  vehemently  to  break  upon  it." 

Individual  Differences  in  Imagination. — There  are  manifestly 
very  great  individual  differences  in  the  power  of  imaging. 
Some  persons  possess  a  good  imagination  for  all  classes  of  sense- 
percepts,  others  possess  remarkable  powers  in  a  certain  class,  as 
sight,  and  still  others  are  almost  devoid  of  any  powers  of  vivid 
imagery.  The  classic  investigations  of  Sir  Francis  Galton  for 
the  first  time  revealed  these  striking  individual  differences  in 
mental  processes.  The  fact  that  people  are  incredulous  about 
such  differences  is  a  strange  thing.  That  such  mental  differ- 
ences exist  is  no  more  strange  than  that  some  people  are  tall, 
some  short,  or  some  red-haired  and  some  black-haired.  But 
the  popular  mind  is  slow  to  recognize  that  mind  is  the  greatest 
variable  in  existence.  Galton  asked  a  very  large  number  of 
persons  to  study  their  imagery  by  the  following  test:  "Think 
of  some  definite  object — suppose  it  is  your  breakfast-table  as 

1  Carpenter,  op.  cit..  p.  502. 


NATURE   OF  IMAGINATION  487 

you  sat  down  to  it  this  morning — and  consider  carefully  the 
picture  that  rises  before  your  mind's  eye. 

"(i)  Illumination. — Is  the  image  dim  or  fairly  clear?  Is  its 
brightness  comparable  to  that  of  the  actual  scene  ? 

"(2)  Definition. — Are  all  the  objects  pretty  well  defined  at 
the  same  time,  or  is  the  place  of  sharpest  definkion  at  any  one 
moment  more  contracted  than  it  is  in  a  real  scene? 

"  (3)  Coloring.— Are  the  colors  of  the  china,  of  the  toast, 
bread-crust,  mustard,  meat,  parsley,  or  whatever  may  have  been 
on  the  table,  quite  distinct  and  natural?" 

He  says  that  the  first  results  of  his  inquiry  amazed  him.  Some 
protested  that  mental  imagery  was  entirely  unknown  to  them; 
others  habitually  possessed  imagery  full  of  distinctness,  detail, 
and  color.  Scientific  men  seemed  to  have  much  less  vivid  and 
exact  imagery  than  the  unscholarly.  Later  researches  have 
disclosed  great  differences  among  different  individuals,  and  also 
that  a  given  individual  may  have  some  type  much  better  devel- 
oped than  others.  It  is  probable  that  mature  individuals  and 
scholars  have  not  lost  their  powers  of  imagination,  but  that  they 
utilize  higher  modes  of  thinking  than  children  and  the  untrained. 
The  former  could,  if  necessary,  think  by  means  of  the  more 
primitive  method — through  imagery.1 

1  Gallon,  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  pp.  83-114.  The  reader  should  also 
consult  Bentley,  "The  Memory  Image,"  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol. 
XI;  Lay,  Mental  Imagery;  Pillsbury,  "Meaning  and  Image,"  Psychological 
Review,  vol.  XV;  Belts  and  Woodworth,  previously  ciled.  These,  with  the 
special  references  ciled  throughout  the  lexl,  will  be  a  sufficienl  guide  lo  the  litera- 
ture of  the  various  phases  of  the  subject. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
IMAGINATION  AND  EDUCATION 

General  Considerations. — A  person  with  a  well-developed 
imagination  can  repicture  clearly,  vividly,  and  accurately  a  great 
variety  of  perceptions  which  have  been  gained  through  personal 
experiences.  He  also  has  the  ability  to  recombine  his  imagery 
so  as  to  construct  new  pictures  out  of  the  elements  of  the  repro- 
ductive images.  A  well-trained  power  of  imagination  enables 
the  possessor  in  addition  to  hold  voluntarily  before  the  mind 
any  selected  images  and  to  exclude  others.  Through  voluntary 
selection  the  trained  individual  is  able  to  reproduce  his  imagery 
for  advantageous  consideration  and  to  recombine  elements  into 
logical,  consistent  trains  of  imagery  and  thus  lead  to  the  con- 
struction of  new  and  original  combinations. 

The  child  usually  possesses  vivid  imagery,  but  the  images 
lack  accuracy.  The  child  also  lacks  voluntary  control  of  his 
images  and  trains  of  thought.  Consequently,  the  child's  fancy 
is  flitting,  incoherent,  inconsistent,  and  ineffective.  The  child 
thinks  out  very  fanciful  stories,  but  they  would  hardly  make  a 
consistent  piece  of  fiction.  It  is  only  with  effort  and  through 
training  that  the  adult  is  able  to  control  thoroughly  his  imagina- 
tion. It  is  erroneous  to  regard  the  child's  imagination  as  being 
better  or  stronger  than  that  of  the  adult.  The  unbridled  play 
of  fancy  in  the  child  causes  his  ideas  to  run  riot,  and  as  imagina- 
tion is  so  frequently  made  identical  with  fancy,  his  imagination 
has  come  to  be  regarded  as  stronger  than  that  of  the  adult. 
The  great  activity  and  vividness  of  the  child's  imagination 
coupled  with  the  fact  that  every  imagined  product  deepens  im- 
pressions on  the  brain  and  the  mind  in  precisely  the  same  way 
that  original  perceptions  do,  suggests  that  this  power  should 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  489 

contribute  much  in  the  education  of  the  child.  Not  only  may 
intellectual  lessons  be  reinforced,  but  we  may  emphasize  if  not 
actually  create  moral  tendencies  by  stimulating  the  child's 
imagination  in  right  directions.  Just  as  bodily  health  or  disease 
may  be  induced  through  the  imagination,  may  we  not  induce 
mental  health  or  disease  by  imaginative  stimulation?  Ideas 
held  before  the  mind  tend  to  result  in  the  corresponding  activ- 
ities, hence  the  desirability  of  holding  only  correct  ideas  and 
ideals  before  the  mind.  Harboring  immoral  imaginations  will 
tend  to  convert  them  into  beliefs,  and  we  are  to  a  large  extent 
what  we  believe. 

What  Training  Involves. — Training  the  imagination  may  con- 
cern itself  with  either  increasing  the  power  of  vivid  recall  or  with 
control  of  the  train  of  imagery,  directing  it  into  desired  channels 
and  thus  leading  toward  the  creation  of  new  and  original  com- 
binations. From  the  discussion  of  the  psychological  meaning 
of  the  imagination  it  can  readily  be  inferred  that  the  key  to  its 
training  lies  in  the  proper  development  of  sense-perception. 
To  state  it  formally,  there  are  requisite:  (i)  Opportunity  for 
abundant  sensory  experiences;  (2)  Judicious  guidance  and 
direction  along  proper  channels;  (3)  Sufficient  exercise  in  re- 
viving actual  experiences;  (4)  Practice  in  building  accurately 
imaginary  pictures  painted  by  another,  as  in  literature,  geo- 
graphical descriptions,  etc.;  (5)  Attempts  at  constructive  imag- 
ination. . 

Recognition  of  Individual  Differences. — In  view  of  the  fact  that 
there  are  great  individual  differences  in  the  power  of  imagery, 
the  question  arises  whether  we  should  attempt  to  develop  the 
special  talents  or  supply  deficiencies  and  try  to  secure  equal 
powers  in  all  directions?  Three  types  of  imagination  undoubt- 
edly have  become  of  greatest  importance  in  our  lives.  These  are 
the  visual,  the  auditory,  and  the  tactile;  and  an  attempt  should 
be  made  to  secure  at  least  a  medium  degree  of  proficiency  in 
reproducing  each  of  these  classes  of  images.  The  senses  of 
taste  and  smell  are  not  so  absolutely  essential,  but,  however, 
unless  the  sense  organs  are  defective  they  should  receive  training, 


490  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

as  the  pleasures  of  life  may  be  much  enhanced  by  being  able  to 
recall  images  in  terms  of  these  senses. 

These  individual  differences  in  imagination  should  be  recog- 
nized in  education.  The  kind  of  imagination  one  possesses  often 
determines  his  success  in  a  given  subject  of  study  or  in  a  given 
occupation  in  life.  The  type  of  imagination  possessed  by  a 
pupil  may  also  determine  his  method  of  studying  particular 
subjects.  One  child  learns  spelling  best  by  visualizing,  another 
by  audilizing,  another  by  reproducing  the  ideas  in  motor  terms. 
One  learns  best  what  he  reads  by  reproducing  it  visually, 
another  by  reviving  the  sound,  another  by  feeling  the  action  of 
the  vocal  cords  or  the  muscles  involved.  I  know  of  two  children 
who  are  taking  piano  lessons.  One  of  them  can  play  from 
memory  without  the  notes  anything  once  mastered;  the  other 
must  always  have  the  written  music  or  she  cannot  reproduce  any 
of  the  lessons.  The  first  has  good  auditory  imagery,  the  other 
is  very  lacking  in  this  type  but  depends  upon  visual  and  motor 
imagery.  Some  people  are  wofully  lacking  in  the  power  of 
visualization.  Such  persons  cannot  draw,  could  not  become 
good  architects  or  designers,  can  invent  nothing,  and  probably 
could  not  build  anything  so  that  the  joints  and  parts  would  fit. 
They  could  not  make  a  success  of  real  geometry  study.  They 
might  memorize  demonstrations  but  could  not  fully  comprehend 
them.  It  frequently  happens  that  a  boy  is  a  great  success  in 
algebraic  mathematics  and  an  equal  failure  in  geometric  mathe- 
matics. Success  in  the  latter  demands  a  high  type  of  visualiz- 
ing power.  Similarly  many  boys  bright  in  geometry,  drawing, 
and  natural  science  may  make  signal  failures  in  their  music. 
To  achieve  success  in  music  requires  especial  powers  of  auditory 
imagery.  Successful  designers  of  wall-paper,  carpet  patterns, 
furniture,  textile  patterns,  and  decorations;  fresco  painters, 
milliners,  dressmakers,  tailors,  architects,  and  inventors,  must 
all  have  good  powers  of  visual  imagery.  One  who  possesses 
special  powers  of  visual  imagery  should  seek  an  occupation 
giving  opportunity  for  their  employment. 

The  possessor  of  a  notably  vivid  auditory  imagination  should 


IMAGINATION  AND  EDUCATION  491 

turn  to  music,  language,  or  some  occupation  demanding  fine 
powers  of  auditory  discrimination.  No  one  has  ever  become 
a  skilled  vocal  linguist  without  possessing  ability  to  detect  fine 
shades  of  sound  differences  and  the  power  of  accurate  revival 
through  imagery.  The  great  musical  composer  must  hear  in 
auditory  imagination  every  instrument,  every  voice,  and  every 
note  to  be  produced  before  he  can  really  compose  the  new  pro- 
duction. Mosso  says:  "An  able  dramatic  writer  once  told  me 
that  when  he  composes  he  has  to  shut  himself  up  in  his  study 
because  he  is  obliged  to  make  his  characters  continually  talk 
aloud.  He  receives  them  as  if  on  the  stage,  shakes  hands  with 
them,  offers  them  a  chair,  follows  them  in  every  little  gesture, 
laughs  or  cries  with  them  as  occasion  demands.  When  he 
writes  he  always  hears  the  voices  of  his  actors."  The  possession 
of  vivid  tactile  imagery  is  rare — certainly  in  adults.  Frequently 
it  is  developed  in  the  blind  because  of  the  lack  of  visual  imagery. 
To  be  able  to  revive  tactile  perceptions  accurately  is  a  gift  as 
valuable  as  rare.  The  great  surgeon  owes  his  skill  largely  to 
this  power.  Artistic  skill  in  drawing,  painting,  or  sculpture 
depends  much  on  tactile  imagery. 

How  to  control  properly  the  imagination  is  a  question  second 
.  in  importance  to  no  other  in  the  realm  of  intellectual  training. 
"  Here  in  a  child's  imaginings,"  says  Dr.  Burnham,  "  is  a  vast 
fund  of  spontaneous  interest.  How  to  utilize  it;  how  to  check 
imagination  when  extreme  without  wasting  this  spontaneous 
interest;  how  to  develop  imagination  when  deficient — in  a  word, 
how  to  adapt  education  to  individual  differences  in  productive 
imagination — such  are  the  teacher's  problems.  .  .  .  There  is 
infinite  variety  in  the  talents  and  in  the  deficiencies  of  human 
beings.  Teachers  must  study  the  individual  differences  in  their 
pupils.  .  .  .  Careful  study  of  the  effect  of  different  methods 
might  show  that  no  method  has  ever  been  employed  that  had 
not  some  good  in  it  for  some  individual;  but  it  would  also  show 
that  no  method  (except  in  its  general  principles)  is  of  universal 
application."  1 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  2  :  224. 


492  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Importance  of  Varied  Development  of  Imagination. — It  is 

very  important  that  children  have  opportunity  for  exercising  the 
various  types  of  imagination.  If  only  one  type  is  appealed  to 
a  habit  of  depending  upon  that  type  is  developed.  This  may 
lead  to  inefficiency  in  various  kinds  of  activities.  It  may  also 
produce  one-sidedness  of  mental  development,  because  excessive 
stimulation  will  produce  hypertrophy  in  one  direction  and  the 
lack  of  exercise  will  lead  to  atrophy  in  others.  The  varied  life 
activities  demand  imaginative  power  of  many  kinds,  and  the 
individual  lacking  in  any  one  phase  of  development  is  debarred 
from  efficient  participation  in  certain  activities.  If  lacking  in 
imaginative  insight  in  many  directions  he  will  be  seriously 
handicapped  in  life's  race.  Even  in  school  the  pupil  who  de- 
pends upon  a  limited  range  of  imagination  appears  to  be  unre- 
sourceful  and  lacking  in  success.  To  enjoy  life  through  the 
imagination  the  types  must  be  varied.  A  single  type  of  imagery 
continuously  experienced  becomes  monotonous.  We  should  be 
able  to  enjoy  music,  painting,  landscapes,  literary  art,  scientific 
imagery,  the  practical  arts,  etc.  The  school  should  afford  a 
wide  range  of  imaginative  exercises  so  as  to  give  power  of  enjoy- 
ment; to  give  efficiency  in  dealing  with  life's  problems;  and  to 
help  in  discovering  special  talents  which  pupils  may  possess. 
There  is  no  more  inviting  and  promising  field  of  educational 
psychology  at  present  than  that  of  the  study  of  types  of 
mental  imagery.  We  need  especially  to  know  how  to  readily 
and  surely  discover  the  types  of  imagery  possessed  by  given 
pupils. 

Dangers  from  One-sided  Development. — There  are  several 
dangers  attendant  upon  a  too  highly  specialized  power  of 
imagination.  Pathological  disturbances  seem  easily  induced  by 
over-specialization.  A  particular  type  of  imagery  may  become 
so  persistent  and  obtrusive  as  to  produce  insanity.  The  hal- 
lucinations are  due  to  abnormal  imagery,  so  vivid  as  to  be 
believed  as  reality.  The  images  pursue  the  patient  during  the 
insanity  with  the  utmost  persistence.  Between  complete  insan- 
ity and  normal  life  there  are  many  stages  of  affliction  from  insist- 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  493 

ent  ideas.  Some  persons  cannot  climb  to  high  altitudes  without 
imagining  themselves  jumping  off.  The  idea  may  persist  and 
through  the  laws  of  ideo-motor  action  it  may  become  an  actual- 
ity. Many  have  been  troubled  by  certain  songs  or  tunes  contin- 
ually obtruding  themselves  in  consciousness.  These  may  be  as 
harmless  as  "Annie  Rooney,"  or  "Wait  Till  the  Clouds  Roll 
By,"  or  they  may  be  more  objectionable.  Words  and  phrases 
may  continually  recur  in  consciousness  and  become  very  exas- 
perating. Some  words  that  one  has  accidentally  caught  persist 
with  the  most  annoying  pertinacity.  Diseases  are  initiated  or 
exaggerated  through  the  imagination.  Quacks  seize  upon  this 
fact  and  distribute  literature  asking  whether  patients  have  not 
certain  symptoms  which  are  sure  indications  of  an  early  grave. 
The  unsophisticated  readily  begin  to  develop  these  symptoms 
and  really  become  diseased.  The  influence  of  the  imagination 
in  alleviating  diseases  is  well  known  to  good  physicians.  A 
large  percentage  of  ailments  need  no  other  medicine  than 
cheerfulness  and  an  imagination  that  the  possessor  is  well  or 
recovering. 

Not  all  hallucinations  are  cases  of  exaggerated  persistent 
visual  imagery.  Auditory  images  may  be  equally  obtrusive. 
Among  historical  examples  of  auditory  hallucinations  are  the 
demon  of  Socrates,  Mahomet's  celestial  messenger,  Luther's 
devil,  and  the  voices  inciting  Joan  of  Arc.  "Queyrat  cites  the 
case  of  a  composer  who  had  unusual  auditory  imagination.  As 
he  sat  by  his  fire  and  recalled  the  song  of  a  linnet  that  he  had 
heard  during  a  walk  in  the  field,  he  heard  a  complete  sym- 
phony— Beethoven's  'Pastorale.'  Nothing  was  lacking,  al- 
though at  times  the  voices  of  nature  mingled  with  the  orches- 
tra. But  his  marvellous  imagination  had  exasperating  caprices. 
Often  for  entire  days  some  vulgar  refrain  of  a  hand-organ 
would  keep  repeating  itself.  There  was  no  means  of  escap- 
ing from  this  obsession.  Even  sleep  did  not  avail;  and  the 
more  he  exerted  himself  to  shake  it  off,  the  more  it  clung  to 
him."  ' 

1  Quoted  by  W.  H.  Burnham,  Pedagogical  Seminary,  2  :  219. 


494  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

IMAGINATION    IN   THE   FORMAL   SCHOOL    SUBJECTS 

Imagination  in  Geography  Study. — Geography  has  for  a  long 
time  been  denominated  the  subject  -par  excellence  for  exercising 
the  imaginative  powers.  Unfortunately  the  very  phase  which 
lends  itself  to  the  basal  training  of  imagination  has  been  over- 
looked. Because  one  can  take  imaginary  journeys  and  through 
his  mental  flight  annihilate  space  and  time,  because  of  the  un- 
bridled liberty  given  to  the  imagination  in  geographical  thinking, 
this  subject  has  acquired  its  reputation.  The  subject,  properly 
taught,  does  employ  the  imagination,  but  not  as  popularly  sup- 
posed. It  is  just  because  geography  deals  with  objective  re- 
alities— physical  phenomena  and  human  activities — that  it  de- 
serves a  high  place  as  a  realm  for  the  exercise  of  the  imagination. 
In  a  large  measure  it  deals  with  things,  the  elements  of  which 
either  have  been  personally  perceived,  or  may  be  exhibited  by 
objective  or  pictorial  representation.  This  is  not  true  of  the 
subtle  phases  of  history  or  literature,  especially  those  aspects 
dealing  with  intellectual  and  emotional  life.  Although  life 
should  form  the  core  of  geographical  instruction  we  are  there 
concerned  with  its  more  outward  characteristics:  what  people 
are  doing;  how  they  live;  the  houses  they  live  in;  their  cloth- 
ing, food,  amusements,  religion,  schools,  their  art  galleries,  the 
scenery  they  enjoy,  products,  manufactures,  interchange  of 
goods,  etc.  Not  a  single  one  of  these  ideas  but  that  is  sus- 
ceptible of  pictorial  representation,  and  not  one  but  may  be  ap- 
perceived  in  terms  of  sense  experiences  obtainable  in  any  good 
course  in  home-geography. 

The  primary  desideratum  in  training  the  imagination  through 
geographical  instruction — or  its  correlate,  geographical  teaching 
through  imagination — is  adequate  contact  with  sufficiently  varied 
surroundings.  Some  writers  rightly  advocate  a  rich  fund  of 
experiences  gleaned  from  rural  life— a  study  of  land  and  water 
forms,  processes  of  land  sculpture,  plant  and  animal  life,  etc. 
They  also  constantly  bewail  the  life  of  the  city  child.  It  is  true 
that  the  city  child  who  never  gets  into  country  surrroundings 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  495 

suffers  a  fundamental  lack  in  his  experiences.  He  is  debarred 
from  enjoyment  through  imaginative  contemplation  of  much  that 
is  suggested  in  his  study  of  the  sciences  and  literature.  But,  is 
there  not  an  equal  lack  suffered  by  the  country  child  through  his 
deprivations  from  contact  with  life — human  life — as  aggregated 
in  urban  surroundings  ?  We  must  acknowledge  that  the  young 
child  is  fortunate  if  not  too  early  stimulated  by  the  complexities 
of  metropolitan  life;  but  at  some  time  in  the  pupil's  experiences 
he  should  witness  some  of  the  scenes  of  the  modern  city.  When 
we  consider  that  a  large  percentage  of  civilized  people  are  con- 
gregated in  the  cities  and  that  only  in  the  cities  is  manufacturing 
engaged  in,  that  in  the  cities  evidences  of  the  world's  greatest 
achievements  in  science,  art,  education,  and  politics  are  to  be 
found,  then  we  must  equally  recognize  that  if  a  child  studies 
geography  in  which  life  is  the  core  around  which  all  is  grouped, 
he  must  have  become,  for  a  time  at  least,  one  of  the  great  busy, 
bustling  throng,  there  to  see,  hear,  touch,  feel,  what  people  in 
that  tumultuous  crowd  see,  hear,  touch,  and  feel.  Otherwise, 
when  he  studies  foreign  life,  because  of  the  law  of  the  limitation 
of  the  imagination  he  can  in  no  way  represent  them  as  realities. 
For  one,  I  commiserate  the  country  youth  who,  when  studying 
foreign  geography,  struggles  with  the  complexities  of  city  life 
which  find  no  responsive  chord  in  himself.  The  great  metro- 
politan centres,  with  their  shipping,  their  railroads,  their  muse- 
ums, cathedrals,  art  galleries,  and  ceaseless  hum  of  factories 
mean  little  to  him  unless  he  has  seen  and  heard  something  akin 
to  these  with  his  own  eyes  and  ears. 

Everything  possible  should  be  done  to  secure  objective  illus- 
tration of  as  large  a  fund  of  facts  as  possible.  Wherever  prac- 
ticable things  should  be  seen  in  their  natural  habitat,  plants  in 
the  fields,  rocks  in  the  ledges,  etc.  Excursions  should  be  of 
frequent  occurrence  in  all  schools.  The  fresh  air  and  exercise 
are  themselves  conducive  to  clear  brains  and  vivid  imaginations. 
Many  city  children  have  never  seen  common  domestic  farm 
animals  such  as  the  cow,  pig,  hen,  and  sheep.  Their  only  ideas 
have  been  built  up  from  pictures.  Their  ideas  through  this 


496  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

source  are  often  so  erroneous  that  many  children  have  thought 
the  cow  no  larger  than  a  mouse.  The  pictures  were  of  the  same 
size,  why  should  they  not  so  think?  "Such  children,"  writes 
Guillet,1  "are  being  starved  not  only  in  one  of  their  strongest 
interests,  but  also  in  language  and  ideas,  for  all  languages  are 
replete  with  metaphors,  proverbs  and  other  folk-lore  which 
allude  to  animals  and  plants  and  which  must  therefore  remain 
meaningless  to  them."  Excursions  should  include  factories, 
foundries,  flouring  mills,  paper  mills,  tanneries,  printing  offices, 
brick-yards,  stone  quarries,  water-works,  gas-works,  electric- 
lighting  plants,  railroad  depots,  commission  houses,  museums, 
art  galleries,  law-courts,  legislative  halls,  caucuses,  etc.,  the 
particular  ones  visited  depending  upon  the  locality.  Not  infre- 
quently are  classes  taught  about  plants,  soils,  and  minerals, 
without  a  single  objective  illustration,  not  seldom  do  pupils 
"pass"  in  the  subject  of  civil  government  without  ever  having 
witnessed  a  single  feature  discussed.  It  is  not  unusual  to  have 
pupils  study  dynamos  without  any  observation  of  a  real  dynamo. 
It  is  still  words,  words,  words! 

The  school  museum  should  also  be  a  prominent  feature  of 
every  school.  In  it  should  be  found  specimens  of  forest,  field, 
factory,  and  trade  from  home  surroundings,  and  as  much  as 
means  will  allow  illustrating  the  life  of  other  countries.  Extended 
zoological,  botanical,  and  mineralogical  cabinets  are  not  usually 
so  educative  for  children  as  collections  typifying  the  industrial 
and  social  life  of  people — remember  that  the  people  are  to  be 
the  centre  of  interest.  Children  should  be  encouraged  in  their 
natural  instinct  for  making  collections.  More  geography  has 
frequently  been  learned  by  a  boy  through  his  stamp  collection— 
which  his  teachers  and  parents  may  have  ridiculed  and  tried  to 
destroy — than  in  all  of  his  hours  of  formal  toil  at  the  subject. 
Of  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine  boys,  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  found 
that  only  nineteen  had  no  collections.  Thirty-two  per  cent,  of 
these  had  made  collections  from  nature,  and  thirty-four  percent, 
had  made  postage-stamp  collections.  The  age  at  which  the 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  7  :  432. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  497 

postage-stamp  instinct  is  at  its  height  seems  to  be  from  nine  to 
eleven  years  of  age — just  the  age  when  geography  is  one  of  the 
dominant  school  subjects. 

In  studying  the  geography  of  foreign  countries  we  must  make 
it  concrete,  even  where  not  feasible  to  make  it  objective.  The 
child  should  get  many  details  so  that  the  concepts  may  be  full 
of  meaning.  Much  should  remain  in  his  mind  in  the  form  of 
generic  images.  Even  where  the  ideas  are  of  the  conceptual 
order  there  must  be  a  possibility  of  "concreting"  the  abstract. 
In  order  to  secure  fulness  and  concreteness,  the  text-book  will 
have  to  be  abandoned,  or  at  any  rate  considered  as  a  text,  with 
the  context  to  be  supplied.  Most  books  are  altogether  too  con- 
densed. Here  is  a  sample  description  of  the  people  of  Holland 
as  given  in  a  recent  geography:  "The  Dutch  are  an  exceedingly 
thrifty,  hard-working  people.  They  succeed  in  raising  good 
crops  of  rye,  wheat,  oats,  and  other  farm  produce,  and  they  ex- 
port cattle,  sheep,  butter,  and  cheese."  The  whole  consideration 
of  Holland  occupies  less  than  a  page,  one-fourth  of  that  space 
being  given  to  two  pictures — the  best  part  of  the  whole  descrip- 
tion for  children.  But  with  the  necessary  generality  of  the  state- 
ments what  could  remain  in  the  child's  mind  except  words  ?  No 
imagery  has  been  suggested  because  the  discussion  is  concerned 
with  giving  superlatively  condensed  statements  expressive  of 
concepts.  Now  we  have  seen  that  concepts  cannot  be  imaged. 
Only  individual  notions  are  capable  of  being  imaged,  and  as  no 
concrete  notions  have  been  given,  we  have  then  not  real  knowl- 
edge, for  the  concepts  can  only  be  constructed  through  the  accu- 
mulation of  particulars,  but  we  have  merely  the  symbols  repre- 
senting knowledge.  The  words  in  such  cases  correspond  to  the 
untranslated  x  in  an  equation. 

In  order  to  get  a  picture  of  Holland  the  pupils  should  see  as 
many  objects  from  there  as  are  obtainable  and  at  least  see  pictures 
of  many  other  things  illustrative  of  Holland  life.  In  this  picture 
there  must  be  definite  imagery  of  the  historic  windmills,  its 
"misty-moisty"  climate,  the  sluggish  rivers,  flat  land — so  flat 
that  from  a  certain  tower  in  Utrecht  almost  the  entire  country 


498  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

can  be  seen;  we  must  image  the  three  great  enemies  of  Holland, 
the  lakes  which  they  drain,  the  rivers  which  they  imprison,  and 
the  great  arch-enemy,  the  sea,  which  they  combat,  sometimes 
successfully,  sometimes  themselves  overwhelmed;  we  must 
image  the  reclaimed  acres  and  the  dikes,  which  nobody  has  ever 
described  perfectly  in  words;  the  alarm  bells;  the  stage-boats 
on  the  canals  in  summer  and  the  whole  families  from  grandsire 
to  grandchildren  on  skates  in  winter;  the  storks  on  the  roofs, 
with  the  traditions  which  each  little  Hollander  is  told  concerning 
these  sacred  birds;  the  Dutch  fishing-boats,  the  awkward  carts, 
the  housewives  scrubbing  the  floors;  the  wooden  shoes  with 
silver  buckles,  the  short  petticoats  and  gorgeous  head-dresses; 
the  Delft-ware  and  the  naturalistic  paintings  of  Rembrandt, 
van  de  Velde,  and  Ruysdael.  These  and  scores  of  other  objects 
and  events  must  be  brought  before  the  pupil  so  vividly  that  he 
projects  himself  into  the  scene  as  an  actual  witness.  This  can  be 
accomplished  only  by  presenting  many  details  and  in  a  concrete 
way.  It  is  only  by  this  means  that  a  proper  conceptual  idea  can 
arise.  To  leave  out  of  Dutch  life  the  windmills,  the  dikes, 
the  storks,  and  the  habits  of  the  people  would  be  like  teaching 
Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out.  It  is  not  impossible  to  teach  all 
the  above  concretely,  either  by  objects,  pictures,  or  through 
verbal  description  which  portrays  the  new  scenes  in  terms  of 
known  experiences. 

"Recently  I  went  into  a  practice  school  connected  with  the 
University  of  Chicago,"  writes  President  Faunce,  "where  I  saw 
the  children  gathered  round  a  teacher  who  was  reading  to  them 
the  poem  of  Hiawatha,  and  their  eyes  were  wide  with  wonder. 
Then  they  went  over  into  the  Field  Columbian  Museum  and  saw 
the  materials  of  Indian  life,  the  tents  and  the  wampum,  the 
feathers  and  the  moccasins,  and  all  the  utensils  of  the  Indian 
household.  Then  they  returned  and  modelled  in  clay  an  Indian 
village,  with  Hiawatha  at  one  end  of  it,  and  all  over  it  the  marks 
of  the  creative  imagination."  In  contrast  Dr.  Faunce  says: 
"I,  too,  learned  Hiawatha,  side  by  side  with  Mr.  Colburn's 
ingenuities.  I  could  spell  the  name  of  every  tree  in  Hiawatha's 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  499 

forest,  but  would  not  have  known  one  of  them  if  I  had  seen  it. 
I  could  pronounce  the  name  of  every  beast  on  the  American 
continent  or  in  Noah's  ark,  but  knew  nothing  about  any  one  of 
them."  l 

Collections  of  pictures  should  form  a  part  of  the  equipment 
of  every  geographical  class-room.  Such  collections  as  are  found 
in  many  magazines  and  accompanied  by  verbal  description  can 
be  easily  obtained  and  they  serve  to  awaken  great  interest  and  to 
make  things  real.  Photographs  can  frequently  be  secured. 
The  stereopticon  views  are  still  better.  One  only  needs  to 
watch  the  crowds  going  to  the  "magic-lantern"  shows  and  the 
moving-picture  shows  to  know  the  interest  that  is  aroused  by 
views  projected  upon  the  screen.  Things  appear  to  stand  out 
in  three-dimensional  space  and  the  perfect  illusions  might 
almost  cause  one  to  mistake  the  representations  for  the  realities. 
No  one  ever  obtained  much  of  an  idea  of  a  glacier  from  an  ordi- 
nary picture  and  verbal  description.  But  I  have  seen  stereopti- 
con views  that  almost  made  one  hear  the  detonation  as  immense 
blocks  of  ice  fell  into  the  sea.  What  promises  to  be  of  vastly 
greater  value  still  is  the  kinematograph  which  will  produce  the 
moving  picture.  What  complex  scenes  are  we  not  able  to  portray 
vividly  to  the  eye.  One  only  lacks  real  auditory  impressions, 
and  they  will  be  awakened  through  imaginative  representations. 
Every  school-room  should  at  least  be  supplied  with  a  good 
lantern  and  it  should  be  a  part  of  every  teacher's  equipment  to 
know  how  to  operate  it.  The  moving-picture  machine  is  now 
so  perfect  that  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  day  is  not  distant  when  every 
school  shall  possess  one. 

These  perceptual  notions  should  more  and  more  be  enriched 
through  the  images  reproduced  from  former  perceptions.  The 
words  of  the  teacher  and  descriptive  books  should  also  bring 
often  into  requisition  as  large  a  stock  of  images  as  possible. 
Finally,  when  a  vast  array  of  fundamental  notions  has  been 
derived  through  the  medium  of  sense-experience  the  representa- 
tions may  be  stimulated  entirely  through  verbal  description. 

1  School  Re-view,  8  :  573. 


500  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Thus  by  the  time  a  pupil  is  able  to  read  standard  literature  it 
ought  to  be  no  longer  necessary  to  resort  to  objective  or  pictorial 
illustration  to  convey  the  pictures  delineated  by  the  writer. 
They  ought  to  be  called  into  being  by  their  verbal  symbols. 
But  until  the  word  has  received  a  content  based  upon  experience 
the  word  can  call  up  no  image.  In  this  higher  stage,  which  is 
of  equal  importance  with  the  lower,  new  pictures  are  created 
through  combination  of  the  pictures  suggested  by  the  words. 

If  geography  is  taught  according  to  the  method  suggested  it 
may  become  one  of  the  richest  subjects  in  the  whole  curriculum. 
It  need  no  longer  remain  "the  poor  man's  study,"  but  one 
which  is  rich  in  basal  concepts  for  almost  every  other  subject. 
It  furnishes  most  of  the  fundamental  apperceptive  content  for  the 
material  sciences,  and  dealing  as  it  does  with  life  in  all  its  rela- 
tions, it  furnishes  the  indispensable  preliminary  to  the  under- 
standing of  literature,  history,  commerce,  economics,  politics, 
and  even  education  and  religion. 

Imagination  in  Scientific  Study. — "Physical  investigation, 
more  than  anything  else  besides,  helps  to  teach  us  the  actual 
value  and  right  use  of  the  Imagination,"  said  Sir  Benjamin 
Brodie  in  an  address  to  the  Royal  Society.1  It  is  not  only  im- 
portant as  a  means  of  training  but  the  sciences  themselves  could 
never  be  profitably  pursued  without  a  judicious  use  of  the 
imagination.  The  same  noted  authority  says  that  this  power 
when  "properly  controlled  by  experience  and  reflection,  becomes 
the  noblest  attribute  of  man;  the  source  of  poetic  genius,  the 
instrument  of  discovery  in  science,  without  the  aid  of  which 
Newton  would  never  have  invented  fluxions,  nor  Davy  have 
decomposed  the  earths  and  alkalies,  nor  would  Columbus  have 
found  another  continent." 

It  needs  to  be  clearly  understood  that  the  repicturing  of  things 
exactly  as  they  are  is  the  essence  of  imagination.  To  look  upon 
a  plant  and  then  when  it  is  no  longer  present  to  recall  its  details 
of  root,  stem,  branches,  leaves,  color,  or  shape,  is  to  imagine. 
To  observe  a  hydrostatic  press  and  later  recall  the  relations  of 

1  Quoted  by  Tyndall,  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  417. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  501 

the  lever,  piston,  valves,  bolts,  and  standards,  is  to  exercise 
imagination.  The  student  who  looks  through  the  microscope 
and  sees  unicellular  beings,  then  turns  away  and  draws  them 
exactly  is  exercising  imagination  of  the  most  accurate  kind.  To 
view  the  proper  geometric  figure  in  connection  with  the  Pytha- 
gorean theorem  and  then  without  having  the  book  or  paper 
present  to  see  the  figure  and  all  its  relations  with  the  mind's  eye, 
is  to  exercise  imaginative  processes  no  less  than  to  write  a  book 
of  fiction.  In  fact  the  former  is  the  more  fundamental  and  the 
latter  is  apt  to  be  incoherent,  hazy,  and  inexact  unless  a  founda- 
tion has  been  laid  through  imagination  of  the  former,  exact, 
reproductive  type.  Imagination  is  employed  in  acquiring  and 
recalling  the  concrete  details  of  science  no  less  than  in  building 
up  notions  of  relations  and  theories  which  have  not  been  tested 
by  observation  of  material  things.  Reproductive  imagination 
is  employed  in  the  former  case,  productive  or  constructive  in  the 
latter.  The  former  is  prerequisite  to  the  latter,  a  fact  which  is 
so  often  overlooked.  If  this  exact  reproduction  of  definite 
notions  of  material  things,  gained  through  the  senses  of  sight, 
sound,  touch,  taste,  smell,  and  weight  is  insisted  upon  the  com- 
binative imagination  will  almost  take  care  of  itself.  At  any 
rate,  there  is  no  place  for  the  latter  without  definite  images  to 
combine.  Thus  the  scientist  with  his  exact  consideration  of 
material  things  has  as  much — I  am  inclined  to  think  much  more 
— to  do  with  the  development  of  powerful  creative  imaginations 
as  the  poet,  the  painter,  or  the  sculptor. 

President  Eliot  said:1  "The  imagination  is  the  greatest  of 
human  powers,  no  matter  in  what  field  it  works — in  art  or  liter- 
ature, in  mechanical  invention,  in  science,  government,  com- 
merce or  religion;  and  the  training  of  the  imagination  is,  there- 
fore, far  the  most  important  part  of  education.  .  .  .  Construc- 
tive imagination  is  the  great  power  of  the  poet,  as  well  as  of  the 
artist,  and  the  nineteenth  century  has  convinced  us  that  it  is  also 
the  great  power  of  the  man  of  science,  the  investigator,  and  the 
natural  philosopher.  .  .  .  The  educated  world  needs  to  recog- 

1  Proceedings  of  the  National  Education  Association,  1903,  p.  51. 


502  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

nize  the  new  varieties  of  constructive  imagination.  .  .  .  Zola, 
in  La  Bete  humaine,  contrives  that  ten  persons,  all  connected 
with  the  railroad  from  Paris  to  Havre,  shall  be  either  murderers 
or  murdered,  or  both,  within  eighteen  months;  and  he  adds  two 
railroad  slaughters  criminally  procured.  The  conditions  of 
time  and  place  are  ingeniously  imagined,  and  no  detail  is  omitted 
which  can  heighten  the  effect  of  this  homicidal  fiction.  Contrast 
this  kind  of  constructive  imagination  with  the  kind  which  con- 
ceived the  great  wells  sunk  in  the  solid  rock  below  Niagara  that 
contain  the  turbines,  that  drive  the  dynamos,  that  generate  the 
electric  force  that  turns  thousands  of  wheels  and  lights  thousands 
of  lamps  over  hundreds  of  square  miles  of  adjoining  territory; 
or  with  the  kind  which  conceives  the  sending  of  human  thoughts 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  stormy  sea  instantaneously  on 
nothing  more  substantial  than  ethereal  waves.  .  .  .  There  is 
going  to  be  room  in  the  hearts  of  twentieth-century  men  for  a 
high  admiration  of  these  kinds  of  imagination,  as  well  as  for 
that  of  the  poet,  artist  or  dramatist.  ...  It  is  one  lesson  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  then,  that  in  every  field  of  human  knowledge 
the  constructive  imagination  finds  play — in  literature,  in  history, 
in  theology,  in  anthropology,  and  in  the  whole  field  of  physical 
and  biological  research.  That  great  century  has  taught  us  that, 
on  the  whole,  the  scientific  imagination  is  quite  as  productive 
for  human  service  as  the  literary  or  poetic  imagination.  The 
imagination  of  Darwin  or  Pasteur,  for  example,  is  as  high  and 
productive  a  form  of  imagination  as  that  of  Dante,  or  Goethe, 
or  even  Shakespeare,  if  we  regard  the  human  uses  which  result 
from  the  exercise  of  imaginative  powers,  and  mean  by  human 
uses  not  merely  meat  and  drink,  clothes  and  shelter,  but  also  the 
satisfaction  of  mental  and  spiritual  needs." 

We  have  already  indicated  that  nature  study  furnishes  valua- 
ble training  in  exact  imagination.  It  is  also  a  special  theatre  for 
the  development  of  the  constructive  imagination.  Child-life 
loves  nature.  Most  children  are  happiest  when  in  direct  contact 
with  nature.  Not  alone  because  the  conventionalities  of  civil- 
ized life  are  cast  aside,  but  also  because  it  offers  attractions  of 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  503 

its  own.  That  is,  it  is  attractive  if  studied  as  a  unity.  In  early 
child-life  it  should  not  be  minutely  analyzed  and  studied  apart 
from  its  natural  setting.  It  should  not  be  dissected  and  sliced 
and  teased  apart  until  nothing  related  remains.  One  of  the 
great  lessons  that  should  be  felt  at  least  is  that  of  the  unity  of  all 
nature.  The  child  naturally  seems  to  feel  this  unity,  and  unless 
the  feeling  is  carelessly  destroyed  it  may  promote  the  highest 
of  all  interests — religious  interest.  All  forms  of  nature  are 
eloquent  teachers.  They  appeal  to  the  child's  imagination  in 
a  way  that  no  human  being  could.  Contact  with  nature  is  a 
most  genuine,  eloquent  exhortation  to  a  contemplation  of  the 
Divine.  Consider  the  feelings  awakened  and  the  imaginative 
scenes  produced  by  viewing  the  mighty  ocean,  the  virgin  forest, 
the  beautiful  fields,  the  tiny  babbling  streamlet,  the  lurid  light- 
ning flash  and  the  thunder  peal  of  a  storm!  All  the  poets  have 
sung  of  the  emotions  awakened  through  the  contemplation  of 
nature,  and  an  appeal  to  individual  experience  can  but  confirm 
the  reasons  therefor.  An  investigation  carried  out  by  the  writer 
a  few  years  ago  in  which  the  experiences  of  many  children  were 
collated,  gave  striking  evidence  of  this  universal  reverence  for 
nature.  When  alone  with  the  forests,  the  rocks,  or  the  sea,  for 
companions,  one's  thoughts  turn  instinctively  toward  the  con- 
templation of  the  universal,  which  cannot  but  lead  to  a  search  for 
the  primal  cause,  for  the  constant,  the  all-powerful — for  God. 
To  the  thoughtful  child  it  is  inevitable  that  he  should  picture  the 
world  beyond,  from  that  the  cause  of  the  world,  the  cause  of 
that  cause,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  The  earliest  conclusions  are 
that  there  is  a  suprasensuous  being  that  acts  upon  the  sensible 
world.  Here  we  have  the  root  idea  of  all  religions.  It  is  con- 
crete, every  force  and  every  being  is  imaged.  Now  all  of  this 
play  of  the  imagination  is  perfectly  normal  and  healthy.  In  fact 
it  is  necessary  to  advancement.  A  similar  play  of  the  imagina- 
tion in  building  new  theories  and  constantly  wondering  is  at 
the  basis  of  all  true  learning. 

For  one  with  some  genius  in  painting  no  better  foundation  for 
science  could  be  had  than  an  exact  and  exacting  course  in  de- 


504  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

scriptive  geometry  as  given  in  an  engineering  school.  Doubt- 
less all  our  great  painters  and  sculptors  owe  much  of  their 
success  in  producing  ideal  creations  to  their  exact  knowledge  of 
anatomy  and  architecture.  These  subjects  are  always  pre- 
scribed in  schools  of  art.  A  great  architect  must  see  every 
minutest  detail  even  in  his  most  unique  creations.  It  is  said 
that  Michelangelo  before  beginning  to  decorate  a  room  in 
fresco  spent  days  and  days  studying  intently  the  bare  walls 
and  picturing  exactly  what  was  to  appear.  Some  one  re- 
monstrated with  him  for  such  a  waste  of  time,  but  he  said: 
"I  have  to  see  my  picture  before  I  can  paint  it."  "With  ac- 
curate experiment  and  observation  to  work  upon,  imagination 
becomes  the  architect  of  physical  theory.  Newton's  passage 
from  a  falling  apple  to  a  falling  moon  was  an  act  of  the  pre- 
pared imagination,  without  which  the  'laws  of  Kepler'  could 
never  have  been  traced  to  their  foundations.  Out  of  the  facts 
of  chemistry  the  constructive  imagination  of  Dalton  formed  the 
atomic  theory."  *  In  the  study  of  sound  the  imagination  must 
be  called  upon  to  transcend  actual  experience.  "The  bodily 
eye,  for  example,  cannot  see  the  condensations  and  rarefactions 
of  the  waves  of  sound.  We  construct  them  in  thought,  and 
we  believe  as  firmly  in  their  existence  as  in  that  of  the  air 
itself."  2  Then  carry  it  over  into  the  realm  of  light.  In  micro- 
scopic work  only  flat  surfaces  are  seen — the  imagination  must 
build  up  the  third  dimension  and  the  relations  between  the 
parts. 

Just  because  natural  science  deals  with  objects  perceived  by 
the  senses  it  affords  unsurpassed  opportunities  for  imagination. 
As  indicated  it  need  not  be  confined  to  exact  copies  of  things 
perceived.  It  may  be  used  to  recombine  in  the  most  unheard-of 
ways.  It  may  picture  the  most  fantastic  combinations  and 
conceive  of  these  elements  as  working  according  to  laws  before 
undreamed  of.  In  fact  this  is  the  course  of  science.  It  is  not 
unscientific  to  do  this  provided  we  further  do  what  the  true 

1  Tyndall,  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  419. 

2  Tyndall,  op.  cit.,  p.  421. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  505 

scientist  does,  viz.,  test  the  conclusions.  Barring  the  small  part 
played  by  accident  in  discovery  this  has  been  the  course  followed 
in  the  development  of  science.  "First  comes  the  conjecture 
pictured  by  the  imagination,  then  logic  and  reasoning,  then  the 
test  by  observation  and  experiment.  This  is  the  necessary  order 
of  discovery,  and  it  is  the  best  order  for  the  student  who  will 
follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  discoverer.  It  is,  and  must  be,  the 
path  of  the  discoverer.  His  mind  must  work  pictorially."  l 

Imagination  and  Invention. — In  every  invention  a  result  to 
be  attained  has  to  be  pictured  and  then  known  appliances  tested 
to  see  how  far  they  will  meet  the  requirements.  If  they  fall 
short  they  must  be  varied  and  combined  and  recombined  in  such 
a  way  as  to  reach  a  result.  The  man  who  invented  copper  toes 
for  shoes  asked  himself:  "What  will  make  that  part  of  the  shoe 
wear  as  long  as  the  rest?"  He  set  about  imagining  various 
things  that  would  produce  the  result.  Copper  caps  were  finally 
hit  upon  and  the  inventor  was  made  rich.  The  invention  of  the 
steam  engine  was  a  similar  process.  What  new  motive  power 
can  be  used  in  exerting  great  force  ?  was  the  question  set.  Steam 
had  lifted  the  lid  of  the  tea-kettle  and  the  imagination  confined 
great  amounts  of  steam  in  a  cylinder,  and  then  conceived  a 
piston  to  compress  the  air  and  the  problem  was  solved.  The 
imagination  has  discovered  atoms  and  worlds ;  it  has  penetrated 
the  interstices  of  all  matter;  it  has  encompassed  in  its  glance 
the  limits  of  the  universe;  it  has  espied  the  invisible  force  which 
unites  all  things  terrestrial  and  celestial;  it  has  stolen  the  secret 
laws  of  all  the  varying  changes  in  the  universe;  it  has  enslaved 
these  laws  and  forces;  it  has  joined  them  in  infinitesimal  per- 
mutations; it  has  harnessed  the  cosmic  forces  singly  and  tandem 
in  w-fold  forms  and  caused  them  to  do  service  from  the  most 
menial  to  the  most  exalted;  it  has  ploughed  our  fields  and  gar- 
nered the  bounteous  harvests;  it  has  lighted  our  homes;  it  has 
clad  us  warmly  and  fed  us  bountifully;  it  has  provided  us  agsthetic 
enjoyment  as  in  music,  art,  and  poetry;  it  has  girt  the  globe  with 
means  of  transit;  by  its  achievements  knowledge  of  the  thoughts 

1  Tyler,  School  Review,  6  :  721-2. 


5o6  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

and  actions  of  all  mankind  is  borne  on  lightning  pulsations 
to  every  corner  of  the  globe. 

Imagination  in  the  Study  of  Literature. — In  training  the  imag- 
ination in  literary  study  first  see  that  the  literature  studied  is 
imaginative;  and  then  let  it  appeal  to  all  the  senses  so  that  liter- 
ature may  quicken  the  boy  to  say  like  Christopher  Sly: 

"I  see,  I  hear,  I  speak; 
I  smell  sweet  savors,  and  I  feel  soft  things." 

Further,  the  laws  of  apperception  must  be  heeded.  It  is 
absurd  to  expect  the  child  to  imagine  when  no  elements  are 
already  in  his  possession.  Parts  of  Childe  Harold,  though 
beautiful  verse,  would  awaken  no  representations  in  the  mind 
of  a  reader  unacquainted  with  Italian  skies.  Similarly  The  Lady 
of  the  Lake  would  call  up  very  little  visual  imagery  to  a  child 
not  made  acquainted,  through  personal  observation  or  pictorial 
representation,  with  the  Scottish  mountains,  lakes,  and  Highland 
costumes.  What  vague,  distorted  pictures  must  be  evolved  by 
children,  life-long  residents  in  the  slum  districts  of  a  metro- 
politan city  like  London  or  New  York,  and  who  have  never 
made  an  excursion  beyond  their  own  ward,  when  they  read  the 
opening  stanza  of  Gray's  Elegy: 

"The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day, 
The  lowing  herd  winds  slowly  o'er  the  lea, 
The  ploughman  homeward  plods  his  weary  way, 
And  leaves  the  world  to  darkness  and  to  me." 

They  have  never  beheld  a  herd,  perhaps  not  even  a  cow;  their 
only  estimate  is  one  gained  from  pictures,  and  undoubtedly  many 
a  boy  has  thus  gained  the  idea  that  a  cow  and  a  mouse  are  of  the 
same  size.  They  have  never  seen  a  lea;  perhaps  have  never 
set  foot  on  earth — only  on  pavements.  The  picture  of  a  fading, 
glimmering  landscape  is  undreamed.  Most  of  the  imagery  sug- 
gested in  the  first  seven  stanzas  would  be  impossible  to  such 
children  until  they  were  provided  with  the  necessary  background 
of  sensory  experience.  This  leads  us  to  the  very  practical 
question  as  to  how  the  sense-perceptions  may  be  supplied  ?  It 


IMAGINATION  AND  EDUCATION  507 

must  be  granted  that  it  is  not  so  easy  to  secure  as  to  prescribe, 
but  that  in  no  wise  vitiates  the  theory  nor  does  it  lessen  the 
desirability  nor  the  imperativeness  of  providing  in  every  manner 
possible  for  a  rich  perceptual  life.  And  whenever  we  cannot 
resort  to  nature  we  must  resort  to  art  to  assist  us.  In  many  cases 
where  words  are  entirely  inadequate,  and  objective  illustration 
impossible,  pictures,  diagrams,  and  charts  can  come  to  the 
rescue.  Pictorial  illustration  as  an  aid  in  teaching  was  initiated 
by  that  noble  and  prophetic  old  Moravian,  John  Amos  Comenius, 
nearly  three  hundred  years  ago,  but  the  manifold  use  of  visual 
representation  is  only  yet  in  its  infancy.  The  stereopticon  can 
be  used  as  well  in  literature  as  in  geography  and  physics.  A 
good  stereopticon  ought  to  be  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  every 
school-room,  not  one  for  every  building,  but  one  for  every  room, 
for  every  grade,  and  every  teacher  ought  to  be  instructed  in  the 
technique  of  its  manipulation.  Take,  for  example,  Irving's 
Westminster  Abbey  and  combine  the  effect  of  lantern  views  with 
the  verbal  description  given  by  Irving  and  how  much  greater 
would  be  the  effect  than  by  the  verbal  description  alone.  In  my 
own  case  the  careful  study  of  the  verbal  description  failed  to  give 
me  a  picture  at  all  corresponding  to  reality.  Upon  visiting  the 
abbey  I  was  not  a  little  surprised  to  find  how  erroneous  my 
notions  were  concerning  it.  A  few  lantern  slides  would  have 
changed  my  ideas  entirely.  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  foreign 
traveller  gets  only  as  much  history  or  geography  through  his 
travels  as  he  takes  with  him. 

Gordy  wrote  aptly:1  "You  would  not  hire  a  man  to  build  a 
house  without  furnishing  the  necessary  materials.  Be  equally 
reasonable  with  your  pupils,  and  do  not  expect  them  to  build 
images  out  of  nothing."  Many  teachers  of  reading  do,  however, 
make  this  very  mistake.  They  expect  literature  to  furnish  the 
basal  imagery,  when  it  should  only  be  employed  to  suggest, 
recall,  and  recombine  images  elsewhere  gained.  Instead  of 
beginning  with  literature  in  training  the  imagination  it  should 
be  the  last  stage. 

1  New  Psychology,  p.  270. 


So8  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

The  German  poet  voiced  the  idea  in  saying: 

"Wer  den  Dichter  will  verstehen 
Muss  in  Dichters  Lande  gehen." 

German  teachers  make  much  more  use  of  objective  or  "  An- 
schauung"  material  than  American  teachers  usually  do.  In 
teaching  the  classics  and  the  modern  foreign  languages  the  at- 
tempt is  made  to  place  the  pupil  in  the  midst  of  the  people  and 
places  which  he  is  studying.  When  studying  Rome,  he  is  to 
see  the  Romans  as  they  were.  Roman  soldiers  and  citizens  had 
distinctive  appearances  in  dress.  The  pupil  must  not  think  of 
them  in  German  soldiers'  and  citizens'  dress.  For  example, 
life-size  pictures  of  a  Roman  soldier,  with  helmet,  shield,  javelin, 
and  short  sword,  or  of  citizens  with  the  toga,  form  a  part  of  the 
objective  material  for  the  lesson  on  one  day.  On  another  day 
the  Roman  Forum  or  the  Athenian  Parthenon  is  shown  in 
drawings  on  a  large  scale.  When  possible,  many  of  the  imple- 
ments of  war  or  those  used  in  the  industries  are  brought  in  from 
the  museums  for  inspection.  Frequent  trips  are  made  to  the 
museums  which  are  found  in  every  town  of  any  size.  In 
America  we  still  have  to  learn  the  educational  value  of  museums. 
In  Germany,  "  Greek  and  Roman  statuary  are  on  every  hand, 
not  usually  in  the  school-room,  indeed,  but  accessible,  and  ancient 
forms  of  architecture  may  be  pointed  out  by  the  teacher  during 
any  lesson.  In  this  way  the  subject  becomes  full  of  interest  and 
reality.  It  assumes  an  ineffaceable  meaning  not  to  be  lightly 
esteemed.  I  have  often  observed  the  correlation  of  art  with 
mathematics,  as  well  as  with  history — for  example,  in  connection 
with  the  Pythagorean  theorem,  the  Conchoid  of  Nicomedes,  or 
the  octagonal  form  of  the  Roman  Forum."  ' 

In  attempting  to  train  the  imagination  through  literature  we 
may  learn  a  valuable  lesson  from  a  psychological  analysis  of 
some  of  the  best  imaginative  literature.  We  need  to  bear  in 
mind  that  those  images  which  are  clearest  and  most  vivid  are 
the  ones  that  are  most  easily  described.  Hence  we  know  that 

1  See  the  author's  Secondary  School  System  of  Germany,  pp.  191,  209. 


IMAGINATION  AND  EDUCATION  509 

those  descriptions  which  are  most  accurate  and  convey  the  clear- 
est pictures  to  the  reader  are  descriptions  of  things  which  have 
come  within  the  writer's  actual  experience.  Scott,  bred  else- 
where, could  never  have  delineated  such  masterpieces  as  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  Ivanhoe,  and  Marmion.  Byron  without 
actual  knowledge  of  Lake  Geneva,  Swiss  mountains  and  castles, 
and  the  political  vicissitudes  of  that  country  could  never  have 
penned  the  Prisoner  0}  Chilian.  No  other  environment  could 
have  furnished  the  same  images  and  stimulated  him  to  describe 
them  with  the  same  realistic  touches.  The  Cotter's  Saturday 
Night  could  not  have  been  written  by  one  unpossessed  of  a 
life-long  familiarity  with  Scottish  life.  Irving,  living  in  the 
Carolinas  or  California,  could  never  have  depicted  the  ideal 
Dutch  life  in  old  New  York  nor  the  Legend  0}  Sleepy  Hollow. 
Though  ideal  and  fictitious,  they  are  true  representations  of 
what  has  been  lived.  No  one  but  a  Yankee  bred  could 
have  written  "When  the  frost  is  on  the  punkin,"  and  only 
a  child-lover  and  observer  could  have  produced  those  sweet, 
inimitable  poems  given  to  us  by  Eugene  Field.  Halleck  has 
studied  the  greatest  bard  of  all  the  ages,  Shakespeare,  to  de- 
termine the  secret  of  his  great  imaginative  resources.  He  has 
shown  that  Shakespeare's  works  are  replete  with  allusions  to 
nature.  The  images  described  are  not  confined  to  sight  alone, 
but  all  the  senses  are  appealed  to — sight,  hearing,  touch,  taste, 
and  smell.  Those  scenes  Shakespeare  would  never  have  been 
able  to  represent  without  first-hand  knowledge  of  all  the  things 
he  has  depicted.  The  poet's  early  life  was  spent  out  of  doors, 
in  contact  with  the  fields,  the  woods,  the  birds,  and  the  animals. 
Though  his  parents  could  probably  neither  read  nor  write,  the 
young  Shakespeare  received  a  splendid  education;  that  is, through 
sensory  training  he  obtained  a  vast  store  of  images  which  were 
later  woven  into  such  marvellous  combinations. 

A  few  examples  will  illustrate  the  use  he  has  made  of  these 
images  in  penning  beautiful  similes  and  metaphors.  He,  to 
be  sure,  is  not  to  be  classed  among  the  nature  poets,  who  aim  to 
describe  nature  in  song.  His  chief  theme  is  human  nature,  but 


510  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

since  all  things  abstract  are  best  described  through  the  concrete, 
let  us  note  how  he  uses  sense-perceptions  to  build  up  ideas  of  the 
most  abstract  relations,  and  the  deepest  human  sentiments. 

To  give  an  idea  of  time  he  uses  many  figures,  comparing  it  to 
material  things: 

".  .  .  and  thus  the 
whirligig  of  time  brings  in  his  revenges." 

—Twelfth  Night,  V  :  i,  453.' 

"Time  is  a  very  bankrupt  and  owes 
more  than  he's  worth  to  season. 
Nay,  he's  a  thief  too:  have  you  not  heard  men  say, 
That  Time  comes  stealing  on  by  night  and  day?" 

— The  Comedy  oj  Errors,  IV  :  2,  172. 

Age  is  portrayed  in  a  realistic  way  in  the  following: 

"These  eyes,  like  lamps  whose  wasting  oil  is  spent, 
Wax  dim,  as  drawing  to  their  exigent; 
Weak  shoulders,  overborne  with  burthening  grief, 
And  pithless  arms,  like  to  a  wither'd  vine 
That  droops  his  sapless  branches  to  the  ground: 
Yet  are  these  feet,  whose  strengthless  stay  is  numb, 
Unable  to  support  this  lump  of  clay, 
Swift-winged  with  desire  to  get  a  grave, 
As  witting  I  no  other  comfort  have." 

— King  Henry  the  Sixth,  ist  Part,  II  :  5,  66. 

He  portrays  ambition  in  manifold  ways,  among  them  the 
following: 

"This  is  the  state  of  man:    to-day  he  puts  forth 
The  tender  leaves  of  hopes;    to-morrow  blossoms, 
And  bears  his  blushing  honours  thick  upon  him; 
The  third  day  comes  a  frost,  a  killing  frost, 
And,  when  he  thinks,  good  easy  man,  full  surely 
His  greatness  is  a-ripening,  nips  his  root, 
And  then  he  falls,  as  I  do.  .  .  ." 

— King  Henry  the  Eighth,  III  :  2,  240. 

1  The  text  here  followed  is  that  of  the  "Eversley  Edition,"  edited  by  C.  H, 
Heiford,  and  published  by  Macmillan  &  Co. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  511 

Note  how  he  represents  adversity: 

"O,  how  full  of  briers  is  this  working-day  world!" 

— As  You  Like  It,  I  :  3,  488. 

"Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity, 
Which,  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venomous, 
Wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head; 
And  this  our  life  exempt  from  public  haunt 
Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones  and  good  in  every  thing." 

— As  You  Like  It,  II  :  i,  493. 

Imagination  and  Dramatization. — The  dramatic  instinct 
should  be  utilized  in  securing  clearness  of  perception  and  vivid- 
ness of  imagination.  In  childhood  the  motor  activities  are  most 
pronounced  and  the  impulse  to  action  is  very  great.  Acting 
the  parts  represented  in  a  reading  lesson  is  a  valuable  stimulus 
to  thought  and  an  efficient  means  of  impressing  the  scenes  upon 
the  memory.  Many  pupils  never  gain  the  slightest  suspicion  that 
much  ordinary  literature  should  suggest  to  their  minds  pictures 
like  those  seen  on  the  stage.  They  have  never  thought  that 
many  or  most  dramatic  stage  scenes  have  been  portrayed  in 
ordinary  prose  or  poetic  form  with  exactly  the  same  plots  and 
dramatic  situations  depicted,  and  that  the  particular  form  as  a 
play  is  assumed  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  dialogue  form. 
Encourage  the  pupils  to  act  out  some  selections,  c.  g.,  Miles 
Standish,  The  Sleeping  Princess  by  Tennyson,  Jean  Ingelow's 
Songs  of  Seven,  none  of  which  were  written  for  the  stage.  Have 
them  arrange  the  stage  scenes  that  might  be  arranged  if  the 
selections  were  played.  Work  out  costumes  and  scenery  and 
help  them  to  impersonate  the  characters  portrayed.  In  this  way 
there  will  dawn  upon  them  a  realization  that  such  literature  is 
an  artistic  representation  of  imaginative  creations.  What  has 
been  dull,  uninteresting,  and  inanimate  now  becomes  fraught 
with  life.  That  the  writer  has  depicted  human  experiences  in 
scenes  which  they  are  to  build  up  in  imagination  will  be  for  them 
a  new  conception.  A  few  weeks  spent  with  a  class  in  the  inter- 


512  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

pretation  and  representation  of  a  single  selection  will  give  pupils 
more  insight  into  the  rich  possibilities  to  be  gained  from  read- 
ing than  years  of  the  ordinary  saying  of  words.  Every  school 
building  containing  several  rooms  should  be  provided  with  an 
auditorium  and  a  stage  where  pupils  can  practise  dialogue 
reading  and  impersonation.  This  stage  should  not  be  used 
chiefly  for  theatricals,  but  as  an  accessory  in  the  interpretation 
of  literature. 

Imagination  in  Composition-writing. — The  so-called  "lan- 
guage lesson"  may  be  very  helpful  in  training  pupils'  imagina- 
tion. In  turn,  the  judicious  use  of  the  imagination  will  be 
found  one  of  the  best  aids  toward  better  language  work.  Lan- 
guage should  always  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  ideas, 
clearly,  accurately,  forcibly,  and  aesthetically.  The  imaging 
power  is  one  of  the  first  requisites  in  securing  clear  and  accurate 
ideas;  and  when  these  are  secured  the  proper  expression  follows 
naturally  to  a  considerable  extent.  Force  and  beauty  of  expres- 
sion are  not  necessary  accompaniments  of  clear  imagery.  The 
judicious  selection  of  imagery  which  is  to  be  included  in  the  con- 
structive product  must  be  taught.  The  first  way  of  cultivating 
this  power  is  to  have  pupils  follow  imaginary  literature.  Second, 
they  should  be  led  to  reproduce  the  imaginary  stories.  Third, 
they  should  be  led  to  construct  imagery  for  themselves.  To 
accomplish  this  last  step  the  teacher  will  need  to  try  various 
devices.  There  will  be  little  trouble  in  securing  the  delineation 
of  something  imaginary.  But  in  order  to  secure  the  description 
of  imaginary  things  true  to  life,  consistent  and  logical,  much 
training  will  be  necessary.  One  way,  which  the  writer  has  seen 
tried  very  effectively,  consists  in  having  children  write  imaginary 
autobiographies  of  various  articles.  Take  for  example,  a  pin, 
a  shoe,  a  hat,  a  tin  can,  a  sled,  or  a  watch.  This  will  furnish 
great  scope  to  the  play  of  the  imagination.  All  sorts  of  episodes 
may  be  contrived  and  yet  the  narration  must  be  consistent  with 
fact.  A  battered  old  hat  or  a  silk  "tile"  may  form  the  central 
theme,  but  it  would  not  do  to  have  the  battered  old  hat  and  a 
fashionable  young  "swell"  coupled  together,  nor  a  poor  boy 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  513 

begging  for  bread  buying  a  silk  "tile."  If  children  once  hear  a 
story  of  this  kind  it  is  surprising  what  faithful  pictures  involving 
flights  of  fancy  they  can  depict.  They  do  it  with  great  zest,  too. 
Another  device  is  to  read  a  story  until  a  very  interesting  part  is 
reached,  then  stop  and  ask  the  class  to  finish  it. 

In  imaginative  literature  great  skill  is  demanded  in  artful 
simile  and  metaphor  making.  The  description  of  one  unknown 
thing  in  terms  of  something  familiar  and  perfectly  concrete  is 
a  part  of  the  work  that  taxes  a  writer  most  severely.  These 
comparisons  are  necessary,  not  alone  for  the  artistic  touch,  but 
for  strength  and  clearness.  Any  one  could  say:  "The  glacier 
moved  very  slowly,  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  an  hour,  and  it  did  not 
move  in  a  straight  line,  and  occasionally  tumbled  over,"  but 
see  how  much  is  added  to  the  mere  understanding,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  beauty,  when  Shelley  writes: 

"The  glaciers  creep, 

Like  snakes  that  watch  their  prey  from  their  far  fountains, 
Slowly  rolling  on." 

The  imagery  was  greatly  enhanced.  Had  we  even  used  the 
word  tortuous,  the  picture  would  have  been  much  richer  than 
with  no  suggested  imagery. 

Read  to  the  children  the  first  part  of  some  simile  and  ask  them 
to  complete  it.  They  will  soon  catch  the  spirit  and  will  surprise 
you  by  the  apt  comparisons  they  make.  Some  unlettered  coun- 
try people  who  have  been  good  observers  often  make  most 
striking  comparisons.  On  the  other  hand  when  we  begin  to 
consider  the  number  of  original  similes  that  the  average  educated 
person  makes  we  are  surprised  at  the  paucity  of  original  com- 
parisons. If  many  comparisons  nre  indulged  in  they  consist 
usually  of  stock  illustrations  preserved  by  a  faithful  verbal 
memory.  They  are  used  on  all  occasions  and  often  with  little 
appropriateness.  Witness  the  various  uses  of  the  words 
"nice,"  "lovely,"  "great,"  "right,"  "proper,"  etc.  To  be  sure 
the  most  fitting  time  to  make  fine  phrases  is  when  under  the 
inspiration  of  an  emotion  that  sways  the  whole  being.  But  the 


514  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

class-room  is  a  good  place  in  which  to  show  what  may  be  done 
and  to  initiate  the  habit  of  using  expressive  language,  so  that 
when  the  wave  of  emotion  does  overwhelm  one  it  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  best  way  possible.  To  show  that  children  natu- 
rally learn  to  express  themselves  in  metaphorical  terms,  let  us 
quote  a  simile  expressed  by  a  four-year-old  child.  She  had  been 
watching  the  shooting  of  fire-crackers  and  had  observed  those 
sputtering  ones  that  we  boys  called  "scizzers."  She  wanted  to 
tell  about  that  species  of  cracker,  and  said:  "They  sound  just 
like  a  dog  when  it  snuffles."  Who  can  suggest  better  images 
to  use  in  the  description?  Better  language  might  be  chosen, 
but  the  ideas  could  not  be  selected  better.  Think  of  one  of  the 
objects  and  you  can  hear  the  other.  The  production  of  an 
appropriate  sound  image  was  desired.  The  image  of  the 
"snuffling  dog"  was  sufficient  to  arouse  it. 

The  value  of  improvising  must  not  be  overlooked.  All  the 
materials  for  any  picture  of  imagination  have  been  gained 
through  sense-perception,  and  they  have  been  conserved  by  the 
memory.  One  of  the  characteristics  of  a  good  imagination  is 
a  readiness  in  reproduction  of  the  memory  images  and  a  quick- 
ness in  combining  these  into  new  wholes.  The  most  ordinary 
and  prosaic  minds  can  usually  recognize  the  fitness  of  the  com- 
bination, when  once  produced,  but  their  slow  minds  cannot 
call  up  previously  recorded  images  fast  enough  nor  can  the 
result  of  combinations  be  taken  in  swiftly  enough.  The  poet, 
the  wit,  and  the  successful  extemporaneous  speaker  are  all  per- 
sons who  have  ready  memories  and  who  make  lightning  associa- 
tions. They  sometimes  jump  at  conclusions,  but  they  cannot 
be  charged  with  wearisome  reflectiveness.  Ofttimes  one  who 
is  not  an  off-hand  speaker  may  still  produce  fine  word  descrip- 
tions in  writing.  He  lacks  only  the  readiness  necessary  for 
extempore  speaking.  The  power  of  marshalling  quickly  all 
one's  ideas  on  a  given  subject  and  launching  out  toward  new 
conclusions  is  very  valuable,  and  practice  in  so  doing  will 
increase  one's  facility  very  much.  Exercises  in  improvisation 
are  very  helpful  especially  to  those  naturally  slow. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  515 

In  teaching  students  to  write  the  same  mistakes  are  frequently 
made  as  in  interpreting  literature.  They  are  asked  to  write 
imaginative  stories  when  they  have  no  foundation  in  experience. 
Instead  of  writing  trash  with  no  significance  they  should  go  out 
into  the  world  to  gain  first-hand  personal  experiences.  Pupils 
write  perfunctorily  because  they  must  say  something  rather  than 
because  they  have  something  to  say.  "  Out  of  the  fulness  of  the 
heart  the  mouth  speaketh."  No  writer  of  descriptive  or  imag- 
inative composition  has  ever  depicted  anything  that  could  live 
unless  he  gave  it  out  of  the  fulness  of  experience.  The  college 
student  should  never  be  deluded  into  thinking  that  he  can  become 
a  great  writer  by  merely  studying  rhetoric.  The  fundamental 
prerequisite  of  all  worthy  composition  is  a  rich  fund  of  personal 
experiences.  Travel,  observation,  study  of  objects  and  problems 
in  the  concrete  are  the  only  efficient  basis  for  authorship.  Mark 
Twain's  most  famous  production  could  never  have  been  sketched 
by  one  who  had  not  spent  his  days  and  nights  as  a  Mississippi 
River  pilot.  Charles  Reade's  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  or  Hugo's 
Les  Miserables  were  only  possible  to  men  who  had  studied  every 
inch  of  territory  and  mastered  the  entire  life  and  spirit  of  the 
times  and  places  portrayed.  If  some  of  our  fledgling  writers 
of  fiction  dealing  with  social  problems  would  go  into  the  slums, 
mix  with  the  working  man  and  the  capitalist,  become  citizens 
and  meet  the  politicians,  become  tramps,  wage-earners,  or 
something  to  gain  real  experiences  of  which  they  want  to  write 
they  would  produce  much  less  bizarre  and  visionary  conclusions. 
If  some  of  the  callow  youths  who  are  producing  the  deluge  of 
"short  stories"  dealing  with  love  would  only  wait  until  they 
had  had  an  opportunity  to  speak  from  personal  experience,  we 
should  be  spared  the  plague  of  frothy,  drivelling  sentimentalism, 
which  cannot  fail  to  instil  the  most  perverted  notions  regarding 
life's  most  sacred  drama  and  the  establishment  of  the  funda- 
mental unit  of  society — the  home. 

Imagination  in  History. — Tolstoi  claims  that  children  are 
interested  in  history,  not  because  of  the  facts,  but  because  of  the 
artistic  dramatic  relations  calling  the  imagination  into  play.  I 


516  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

shall  allow  the  distinguished  Russian  to  speak  for  himself: 
"  I  am  convinced  that  all  the  characters,  all  the  events  of  history, 
interest  the  pupil,  not  by  means  of  their  historical  significance, 
but  on  account  of  their  dramatic  attraction,  by  reason  of  the  art 
displayed  by  the  historian  or  more  often  by  popular  tradition. 
The  history  of  Romulus  and  Remus  is  interesting,  not  because 
these  two  brothers  founded  the  most  powerful  city  in  the  world, 
but  because  it  is  attractive,  pleasing,  wonderful.  In  a  word, 
the  child  does  not  have  a  taste  for  the  history  itself,  but  for 
the  art."  * 

History  affords  a  golden  opportunity  for  the  use  of  the  imag- 
ination, both  reproductive  and  constructive.  To  study  history 
aright  we  must  not  only  understand  the  chronicles,  but  we  must 
see,  hear,  and  follow  the  historic  personages.  Listen  to  Burke's 
speeches!  See  Webster's  full  rounded  visage  with  eagle  eyes 
as  he  pleads  the  cause  of  liberty  and  union!  Not  only  see  and 
hear,  but  feel  all  the  stirring  emotions  that  welled  up  in  his  own 
heart  and  in  the  breathless  audiences  that  actually  listened. 
Read  the  speeches  aloud,  not  silently — have  the  pupils  practise 
a  term  if  need  be  to  render  the  selection  in  a  manner  that  will 
make  you  feel  the  change  of  blood-flow  and  the  heightened 
emotions.  Oratory  appeals  to  the  ear  and  not  to  the  eye. 
Hence,  how  can  pupils  imagine  oratory  unless  it  is  in  terms  of 
hearing  ?  Listening  to  impassioned  speeches  will  tend  to  make 
all  speeches  ring  through  their  ears  and  thrill  every  fibre. 

Training  Through  the  Fine  Arts. — Undoubtedly  much  more 
of  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  develop  the  imagination  by 
means  of  the  fine  arts.  More  people  than  we  assume  are  lifted 
to  ideal  planes  by  means  of  painting  and  sculpture.  Pictures  are 
too  costly  for  large  individual  collections  and  only  the  cheapest 
copies  can  be  obtained  by  the  poor.  But  in  our  large  cities 
public  art  galleries  ought  to  be  numerous.  Professor  George 
Harris  believes  that  "the  love  of  pictures  is  almost  universal." 
In  support  of  this  belief  he  says:  "When  a  loan  exhibition  of 
paintings  is  opened  at  the  South  End  in  Boston,  throngs  of 

1  Quoted  by  Compayre,  Psychology  A  pplied  to  Education,  p.  74. 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  517 

manual  laborers  take  the  trouble  to  procure  tickets,  and  comply 
with  the  request  to  indicate  preferences,  the  best  pictures  always 
having  a  majority  of  votes.  Wealthy  men  that  collect  fine 
paintings  become  more  interested  in  pictures  than  in  business. 
In  fact,  almost  any  avocation  which  is  intellectual,  artistic, 
scientific,  or  literary  elevates  and  idealizes."  l  The  German 
people  are  more  idealistic  and  are  they  not  raised  more  above 
the  sordid,  utilitarian  life  than  we  ?  Is  it  not  discernible  in  the 
university  life,  in  the  happy  burgher  who  sings  the  national 
songs  while  at  his  round  of  daily  toil,  and  in  the  company  of 
soldiers  who  go  marching  to  the  drill  ground  at  daylight  listen- 
ing as  they  march  to  the  inspiring  national  airs  ?  Their  songs 
all  idealize  the  Vaterland. 

Necessity  of  Cultivation. — Lastly,  to  train  the  imagination  the 
child  must  imagine.  That  is,  he  must  represent,  must  image 
the  things  perceived  or  verbally  portrayed  and  should  also 
recall  them  frequently.  A  good  means  of  clarifying  imagery 
and  making  it  definite  is  to  require  graphic  or  scenic  representa- 
tion of  things  delineated.  Good  Herbartians  all  require  children 
to  construct  Robinson  Crusoe's  tools,  weapons,  huts,  etc.,  and 
the  "culture  epochs"  devotees  all  have  made  sufficient  supplies 
of  Hiawatha's  wigwams,  birch-bark  canoes,  and  moccasins  to 
stock  many  museums.  Their  procedure  exemplifies  good  ped- 
agogy of  the  imagination.  Snow  Bound,  Miles  Standish,  Rip 
Van  Winkle,  every  lesson  in  history,  geography,  and  science  offer 
abundant  opportunity  for  recall  through  imagery  of  the  ideas 
gained.  I  have  emphasized  strongly  the  necessity  of  sensory 
experience  as  basal  to  all  imagination.  But  that  is  only  the  first 
step,  and  we  must  not  overlook  the  importance  of  adequate  exer- 
cise in  repicturing  what  has  been  perceived.  It  is  easily  pos- 
sible to  allow  the  child  to  live  too  much  in  the  realm  of  sense- 
perception.  Hinsdale  says  we  keep  the  child  too  long  "thinging 
it"  and  Schaeffer  says  the  child  deals  with  blocks  so  long  that  he 
becomes  a  blockhead.  Representation  is  a  higher  process  than 
presentation  and  progress  means  that  the  child  must  advance  to 

1  School  Review,  6  :  700. 


5i8  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

the  highest  possible  stage.  Important  as  laboratory  work  is, 
it  may  degenerate  into  the  most  paralyzing  sort  of  instruction 
if  there  is  no  opportunity  for  recall  and  reflection  stimulated  by 
the  recitation  and  generous  questioning.  I  have  known  even 
college  students  to  rush  through  a  year  of  physics  or  chemistry 
with  no  other  aim  than  to  finish  the  prescribed  number  of  ex- 
periments. Mere  text-book  work  with  a  Socratic  teacher  would 
be  as  valuable,  for  it  would  at  least  stimulate  reflection  and 
necessitate  imagery  of  the  chance  personal  experiences.  One 
of  the  main  purposes  of  the  recitation  is  to  give  this  very 
opportunity  for  revival  of  images.  It  is  also  a  means  of  sug- 
gesting new  combinations  and  relations  and  producing  new 
imagery. 

Imagination  in  Every-day  Life. — While  stress  has  been  laid  on 
the  education  of  the  imagination  in  connection  with  school  sub- 
jects, it  must  not  be  inferred  that  imagination  is  of  value  in 
scholastic  life  only.  No  power  of  the  mind  should  be  more 
active  in  performing  the  duties  outside  of  school,  and  the  pur- 
pose of  the  school  training  is  in  part  to  make  the  individual  more 
efficient  and  happier  in  the  extra-school  occupations  throughout 
the  rest  of  his  life.  The  imagination  is  needed  in  every  art, 
trade,  craft,  or  occupation.  For  example,  the  efficient  black- 
smith must  see  exactly,  in  imagination,  the  horse's  hoof  to  be 
shod,  the  wagon  tire  to  be  fitted,  the  function  of  the  bolt  or 
brace;  and  then  he  must  hammer  the  iron  and  steel  to  fit  the 
particular  case.  The  painter,  the  carpenter,  the  architect,  the 
watchmaker,  the  machinist,  the  inventor,  the  type-writer,  the 
printer,  the  landscape  gardener,  the  tailor,  the  dressmaker,  the 
milliner,  the  musician,  the  farmer — all  need  well-trained  powers 
of  imagination  if  they  are  to  succeed  in  life. 

Wonders  of  the  Imagination. — In  closing,  we  may  echo  the 
statement  of  Robert  Witt  that  "the  possession  of  a  vivid  imag- 
ination, of  the  imaginative  faculty  in  all  its  variety  and  many- 
sidedness,  is  a  gift  of  the  gods  themselves,  and,  as  it  were,  price- 
less. Imagination  has  the  power  to  alter  the  face  of  the  world, 
to  bridge  distance,  to  annihilate  time;  like  an  alchemist  it  can 


IMAGINATION  AND   EDUCATION  519 

transmute,  refine,  transform;  like  the  artist  it  is  skilful  to  glorify 
and  to  enrich.  On  the  moral  side  of  life  it  knows  how  to  com- 
fort and  encourage,  to  inspire  and  control,  to  animate  and  to 
rejoice."  l 

1  Robert  C.  Witt,  Westminster  Review,  August,  1900. 


CHAPTER  XX 
APPERCEPTION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION 

General  Illustrations  of  Apperception. — Lloyd  Morgan  says1 
that  "As  my  friend  and  I  are  walking  along  the  road,  during  a 
pause  in  our  conversation  we  pass  a  gate  at  which  some  cattle 
are  standing.  We  both  begin  to  speak  at  once,  and,  after  mutual 
apologies  and  the  usual  courtesies,  he  takes  the  precedence,  and 
tells  me  of  the  Red  Devons  with  which  he  has  stocked  a  farm 
which  he  has  lately  purchased.  When  he  has  spoken,  he  asks 
me  what  I  was  about  to  say;  and  I  laughingly  reply  that  I  was 
merely  going  to  ask  whether  he  thought  certain  recent  promises 
to  electors  (1892)  were  much  more  likely  to  be  fulfilled  than 
certain  other  promises  in  1885  concerning  three  acres  and  a 
cow.  Now  here  a  similar  impression,  the  result  of  primary 
suggestion,  gives  rise  in  two  different  minds  to  two  different 
trains  of  ideas.  .  .  .  There  is  not  much  difficulty  in  assigning, 
in  general  terms,  reasons  for  the  different  results  in  his  mind 
and  in  mine.  His  farm  in  Devonshire  had  been  for  some  time 
a  topic  of  thought  and  discussion,  his  mind  had  a  constant  ten- 
dency to  revert  to  this  subject.  .  .  .  Probably  the  farm  was 
lurking  in  the  background  of  his  consciousness  as  he  walked 
silently  by  my  side.  On  the  other  hand,  my  own  mind  was,  as 
we  say,  full  of  the  elections,  and  of  certain  statements  reported 
to  have  been  made  in  Wiltshire  to  catch  the  agricultural  vote. 
The  cow  appeared  to  me  therefore  in  an  electioneering  connec- 
tion. Had  a  butcher  been  with  us,  the  cattle  might  well  have 
suggested  the  peculiar  excellence  of  last  year's  Christmas  beef. 
Or  if  a  student  of  prehistoric  archaeology  had  been  there,  his 

J  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology,  p.  63. 
520 


APPERCEPTION  521 

mind,  through  the  intervention  of  Bos  primigenius,  might  have 
wandered  to  the  Europe  of  primitive  times." 

Steinthal  tells  a  story  to  illustrate  how  each  person's  apper- 
ceptive  masses  color  all  his  mental  processes.  Six  persons, 
strangers  to  each  other,  were  riding  together  one  day  in  a  com- 
partment railway  carriage  and  one  of  them  proposed  to  tell  the 
vocation  of  all  the  rest  if  they  would  each  write  without  hesita- 
tion the  answer  to  a  question  which  he  would  give  them.  The 
question  was:  "What  destroys  its  own  offspring?"  One 
wrote,  "Vital  force,"  and  was  promptly  told  that  he  was  a 
biologist.  The  second  wrote  "War,"  and  was  picked  out  as 
a  soldier.  The  next  was  called  a  philologist  because  his  answer 
was  "Kronos."  The  journalist  of  the  party  had  disclosed  his 
identity  by  writing  the  word  "Revolutionist,"  and  the  farmer 
by  writing  "Boar."  "Each  one,"  says  Steinthal,  "answers  the 
first  thing  that  occurs  to  him,  and  that  is  whatever  is  most  nearly 
related  to  his  pursuit  in  life.  Every  question  is  a  hole-drilling 
experiment,  and  the  answer  is  an  opening  through  which  one 
sees  into  our  interiors.  .  .  .  We  are  able  to  recognize  the  clergy- 
man, the  soldier,  the  scholar,  the  business  man,  not  only  by  the 
cut  of  their  garments  and  the  attitude  of  their  bodies,  but  by 
what  they  say  and  how  they  express  it,  ...  by  the  point  of 
view  from  which  they  regard  things,  judge  them,  conceive  them, 
in  short  by  their  mode  of  apperceiving." 

Emerson  wrote:  "What  can  we  see  or  acquire,  but  what  we 
are?  You  have  seen  a  skilful  man  reading  Vergil.  Well,  that 
author  is  a  thousand  books  to  a  thousand  persons.  Take  the 
book  into  your  hands,  and  read  your  eyes  out;  you  will  never 
find  what  I  find.  If  any  ingenious  reader  would  have  a  monopoly 
of  the  wisdom  or  delight  he  gets,  he  is  as  secure  now  the  book  is 
Englished,  as  if  it  were  imprisoned  in  the  Pelews  tongue."  Ac- 
cording to  our  training,  unfortunately  we  are  apt  to  look  upon 
one  of  the  political  parties  as  being  absolutely  right  and  the 
others  as  wholly  deluded.  Similarly  our  views  of  religious 
denominations  and  even  moral  questions  are  sometimes  terribly 
warped  by  the  example  and  teachings  we  have  received.  The 


522  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Hindu  woman  casts  her  babe  into  the  Ganges  to  be  devoured 
by  alligators  because  she  believes  such  action  to  be  right.  Her 
religion  teaches  her  to  do  it,  and  frequent  examples  seem  to 
justify  the  conclusion.  The  savage  believes  it  to  be  right  to  rob 
or  slay  his  enemy,  while  civilized  nations  declare  against  such 
practices. 

In  order  to  understand  much  of  ordinary  conversation  it  is 
necessary  to  have  a  large  fund  of  information  to  form  a  back- 
ground for  its  interpretation.  The  child's  readers  doubtless 
always  contain  innumerable  common  words,  of  which  the  child 
has  no  knowledge  beyond  their  sound.  Any  teacher  who  will 
take  the  trouble  to  investigate  may  be  astonished  to  discover 
that  some  of  the  most  ordinary  terms  are  practically  meaningless 
to  the  children.  President  G.  Stanley  Hall  in  his  classical  study, 
"The  Contents  of  Children's  Minds  on  Entering  School"  (later 
discussed),  astounded  many  by  his  revelations  of  the  igno- 
rance of  children  concerning  supposedly  familiar  words  and 
objects. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  recall  illustrations  showing  how  variously 
different  persons  look  upon  the  same  event.  The  artist  viewing 
Niagara  Falls  goes  into  ecstasy  over  the  magnificent  scenery; 
the  engineer  says:  "What  tremendous  water-power";  the  geolo- 
gist studies  the  rock  strata,  the  force  of  the  current,  and  computes 
the  age  of  the  earth;  the  farmer  says:  "  What  a  waste  of  farming 
land."  We  are  told  that  one  lady  who  visited  there  after  dilat- 
ing upon  the  wondrous  scenery  turned  to  her  boy,  who  she 
thought  must  be  awe-struck  by  the  grandeur,  and  inquired  what 
he  thought  of  it.  Imagine  her  amazement  when  he  calmly 
inquired:  "Is  that  the  kind  of  spray  you  spray  my  nose  with?" 
In  childhood  one  is  accustomed  to  think  that  the  hills  he  knows 
are  so  high,  the  valleys  so  deep,  the  rivers  so  broad,  the  buildings 
so  large,  and  the  people  so  great.  He  goes  away  for  a  few  years, 
returning  a  grown-up,  and  anticipates  with  eagerness  the  re- 
experience  of  the  same  childhood's  sensations.  Alas,  the  disil- 
lusionment! The  hills  have  dwindled,  the  valleys  have  been 
filled,  the  buildings  have  become  shrunken,  and  the  people  are 


APPERCEPTION  523 

so  ordinary.  "How  changed  is  all!"  he  exclaims.  "It  was  not 
thus  when  I  was  a  child."  But  he  should  know  that  it  is  he  who 
is  changed.  The  "eternal  hills"  have  remained  practically  as 
they  were.  But  the  new  scenes  and  the  new  life  which  he  has 
experienced  have  given  him  glasses  colored  with  interpretations 
which  he  can  never  lay  aside.  Not  only  have  the  new  ideas 
been  interpreted  through  old  ideas,  but  the  old  possessions  have 
been  modified  by  the  new. 

Children's  Understanding  of  Words. — The  incorrect  use  of 
words  by  children  may  be  frequently  traced  to  entirely  erroneous 
ideas  back  of  them.  The  wrong  words  substituted  reveal  the 
incorrectness  or  the  narrowness  of  their  apperceptive  masses. 
The  right  words  are  not  employed  solely  because  there  is  no 
conception  in  the  mind  corresponding  to  them.  The  concep- 
tions that  are  a  part  of  the  mental  possession  force  themselves 
to  the  foreground  and  the  words  representing  them  are  their 
natural  expression.  A  child  said:  "Blessed  are  the  shoe- 
makers," etc.  When  he  had  heard  the  word  "peace-makers," 
no  correct  idea  had  been  gained  through  the  word  and  the 
expression  linked  itself  with  the  nearest  known  idea.  The  fol- 
lowing mistakes  illustrate  the  same  point.  A  child  heard  the 
verse:  "A  double-minded  man  is  unstable  in  all  his  ways."  He 
rendered  it  thus:  "A  double-minded  man  is  in  the  stable  all  the 
time."  A  child  said:  "An  average  is  what  a  hen  lays  on."  He 
had  heard  some  one  say  that  "a  hen  lays  on  an  average  one 
hundred  eggs  in  a  season."  I  said  to  my  boy  of  three:  " That  is 
a  freight  train."  "  Why  is  it  afraid  ?  "  said  he.  Children  on  first 
seeing  snow  on  the  ground  frequently  call  it  sugar  or  salt.  As 
it  floats  down  they  hail  it  as  feathers  or  as  butterflies.  A  child 
on  seeing  a  pot  of  ferns  called  it  a  pot  of  green  feathers.  James 
says  the  sail  of  a  boat  is  called  a  curtain  by  the  child.  His 
"child  of  two  played  for  a  week  with  the  first  orange  that  was 
given  him,  calling  it  a  'ball.'  He  called  the  first  whole  eggs  he 
saw  'potatoes,'  having  been  accustomed  to  see  his  'eggs'  broken, 
into  a  glass,  and  his  potatoes  without  the  skin.  A  folding  pocket- 
corkscrew  he  unhesitatingly  called  'bad-scissors.'" 


524  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Children  unreflectingly  often  mistake  new  words  for  those  that 
are  similar.  A  "guardian"  is  thought  to  be  a  "gardener,"  a 
"salon"  a  "liquor-shop."  They  make  many  curious  errors  in 
interpreting  words  having  a  variety  of  meanings.  They  think 
"dressed  beef"  has  on  some  sort  of  clothing.  A  class  of  mine 
were  told  one  day  that  we  send  ministers  to  England  and  other 
foreign  lands.  One  child  reported  the  next  day  that  we  send 
preachers  to  England.  The  children  in  an  upper  grammar 
school  of  Berlin  were  asked  what  mountain  (Berg)  they  had 
seen  and  all  answered  Pfeffenberg,  the  name  of  a  beer-house 
near  by.  For  all  of  them  Berg  meant  a  place  of  amusement. 
This,  as  Dr.  Hall  says,  would  cause  an  entire  group  of  geograph- 
ical ideas  to  miscarry.  My  children  had  heard  us  talk  about 
picking  out  (selecting)  goods  from  a  catalogue.  One  boy  of  two 
years  brought  me  the  catalogue  opened  to  a  picture  of  ahorse 
and  asked  me  to  "pick  it  out,"  expecting  a  real  live  horse  to  be 
taken  out.  A  boy  of  two  said:  "I  saw  the  trains  unhitch." 
Another  child  asked  a  deaf  person:  "  Are  you  blind  in  your  ear  ?  " 
A  farmer's  boy  of  ten  inquired:  "Will  bees  sting  when  they  are 
not  sitting?"  (His  experience  with  cross  sitting  hens  had  made 
him  suspicious.)  Other  examples  illustrating  essentially  the 
same  mental  reaction  are  given  in  the  chapters  on  imagination 
and  thinking.1 

Perception  and  Apperception. — From  the  foregoing  illustra- 
tions we  clearly  see  that  it  is  not  alone  what  we  gain  through 
sensory  data  that  determines  what  we  shall  perceive  or  think. 
The  mind  itself  contributes  the  essential  factors  which  give  our 
perceptions  significance.  Though  the  same  outward  stimuli 
may  be  presented  to  the  dog  and  the  doctor,  what  each  really 
perceives  are  separated  by  impassable  chasms.  The  ideas 
which  each  one  secures  through  the  impressions  are  determined 
not  so  much  by  sensory  data  as  by  previous  experiences — per- 


1  Consult,  also,  Caroline  Le  Row's  English  As  She  Is  Taught,  Century  Co. 
It  is  made  up  of  actual  answers  written  by  pupils  in  examinations.  The  intro- 
duction by  Mark  Twain  does  not  seem  at  all  funny  when  compared  with  the 
pupils'  answers. 


APPERCEPTION  525 

sonal  or  ancestral.  That  is,  what  is  perceived  is  also  apper- 
ceived.  By  using  this  term  it  is  not  intended  to  show  that  there 
is  a  special  process  which  we  may  call  apperception.  It  simply 
shows  the  resultant  of  all  the  associative  forces  that  are  con- 
tinually operative  in  determining  our  currents  of  thought.  The 
study  of  association  has  shown  that  the  character  of  previous 
experiences,  their  recency,  habits  of  thought,  memory,  educa- 
tion, health,  emotional  tone,  in  short,  one's  "psycho-statical"  con- 
dition, as  termed  by  Lewes,  determines  these  currents.  Doubt- 
less the  term  association  would  be  sufficient,  but  inasmuch  as 
the  term  apperception  is  in  current  use  with  reference  to  the 
interrelations  between  mental  content  and  new  experiences,  it 
will  be  a  useful  one  to  employ. 

Apperception  is  not  a  process  that  is  operative  only  occasion- 
ally. But  it  is  usually  in  striking  instances  that  the  process  is 
brought  to  our  attention.  Upon  reflection  we  at  once  recognize 
that  we  are  continually  interpreting  new  facts  by  means  of  ideas 
already  in  our  possession.  The  every-day  effect  of  feelings  >upon 
our  thoughts  is  an  exemplification.  The  world  appears  roseate 
to  one  who  has  slept  well  and  dined  well  and  upon  whom  fortune 
in  general  has  recently  smiled;  but  the  sombre  tints  alone  are 
visible  to  one  troubled  with  insomnia  or  indigestion,  or  upon 
whom  calamity  has  fallen.  In  interpreting  all  experiences  which 
come  to  us  we  rely  upon  past  experiences  to  give  them  meaning. 
A  traveller  in  a  foreign  land  gains  from  his  travel  largely  in  pro- 
portion to  what  he  takes  with  him.  A  common  seaman  travels 
the  world  over  and  knows  nothing  of  the  wealth  of  history  that 
may  be  revealed  to  one  who  reads  history  before  going.  The 
peasant  often  lives  a  lifetime  in  sight  of  monuments  and  battle- 
fields and  remains  unconscious  of  their  meanings.  What  would 
Westminster  Abbey  mean  to  an  unlettered  serf  ?  A  mere  stone 
pile  not  different  in  significance  from  any  other.  His  soul  would 
remain  unthrilled  by  the  thought  of  the  presence  of  the  mortal 
remains  of  so  many  of  the  world's  illustrious  dead.  To  the 
student  of  the  world's  history  there  must  come  feelings  of  rever- 
ence and  awe  as  he  lose?  himself  in  imaginative  contemplation 


526  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

of  that  splendid  phantom  cavalcade  which  must  pass  before  him 
in  silent  review.  To  one  who  comprehends,  it  seems,  as  Irving 
says,  like  stepping  back  into  the  regions  of  antiquity  and  losing 
one's  self  among  the  shades  of  former  ages. 

Not  only  does  the  content  of  the  mind  determine  our  under- 
standing of  all  new  ideas  presented,  but  reciprocally  the  new 
acquisitions  modify  the  old  ideas  already  possessed.  This  proc- 
ess goes  on  so  gradually  that  it  is  scarcely  perceptible.  We 
usually  do  not  notice  it  until  we  are  suddenly  brought  to  a  con- 
sciousness that  we  have  undergone  a  complete  revision  of  opinion 
upon  some  large  question.  We  say  to  ourselves :  "  Is  it  possible 
that  I  ever  thought  that?"  "How  could  I  have  believed  it?" 
Similarly  our  understanding  of  natural  phenomena  undergoes 
change.  Our  moral,  religious,  and  political  beliefs  are  also 
slowly  but  surely  metamorphosed. 

Definitions. — It  has  readily  become  apparent  that  appercep- 
tion, so  far  from  being  a  distinct  process,  is  a  part  of  every  act  of 
perception,  and  also  enters  into  every  higher  mental  process  of 
learning.  It  comprises  the  whole  process  of  evaluation  and 
assimilation.  When  we  consider  that  through  organic  memory 
the  effect  of  each  acquisition  is  permanent  and  that  it  enters  into 
w-fold  relations  writh  all  preceding  acquisitions,  we  can  easily 
understand  the  meaning  of  apperception.  The  most  significant 
definition  of  apperception  ever  given  is  one  from  the  physiolog- 
ical point  of  view,  formulated  by  Titchener.  He  says:1  "An 
apperception  is  a  perception  whose  character  is  determined, 
wholly  or  chiefly,  by  the  peculiar  tendencies  of  a  nervous  system, 
rather  than  by  the  nature  of  the  thing  perceived."  Morgan 
said  of  a  particular  apperceptive  association:  "Presumably 
from  the  physiological  point  of  view  certain  cortical  centres,  the 
disturbances  in  which  are  associated  with  this  particular  form 
of  consciousness,  were  already  in  a  state  of  irritability  or  incipient 
change,  and  needed  only  a  suggestive  impulse  to  raise  their 
molecular  thrills  into  dominance."  2 

1  A  Primer  of  Psychology,  p.  88. 

2  Introduction  to  Comparative  Psychology,  p.  65. 


APPERCEPTION  527 

The  following  definitions  and  descriptions  of  apperception 
may  serve  to  throw  additional  light  upon  the  question: 

"Apperception  may  be  roughly  defined  at  first  as  the  process 
of  acquiring  new  ideas  by  the  aid  of  old  ideas  already  in  the 
mind"  (McMurry,  General  Method,  p.  176). 

"  Whenever  by  an  act  of  attention  mental  data  are  unified  into 
a  related  whole,  this  is  an  act  of  apperception"  (J.  Mark 
Baldwin  Psychology,  p.  56). 

"  Every  impression  that  comes  in  from  without,  be  it  a  sentence 
which  we  hear,  an  object  of  vision,  or  an  effluvium  which  assails 
our  nose,  no  sooner  enters  our  consciousness  than  it  is  drafted 
off  in  some  determinate  direction  or  other,  making  connection 
with  the  other  materials  already  there,  and  finally  producing 
what  we  call  our  reaction.  The  particular  connections  it  strikes 
into  are  determined  by  our  past  experiences  and  the  'associa- 
tions' of  the  present  sort  of  impression  with  them"  (James, 
Talks  to  Teachers,  p.  157). 

"  New  habits  tend  to  become  assimilated  to  older  habits.  The 
result  is  that  all  new  events  in  the  conscious  realm  tend,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  workings  of  the  associative  process,  to  be  assim- 
ilated in  type  to  the  conscious  events  which  have  already  oc- 
curred" (Royce,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  229). 

"The  physician  will  at  a  glance  detect  in  a  patient  symptoms 
which  have  escaped  the  anxious  scrutiny  of  friends  and  relatives. 
The  reason  for  this  certainly  does  not  lie  in  the  greater  intensity 
of  his  interest.  He  is  able  to  note  what  they  fail  to  note,  because 
in  his  mind  an  apperceptive  system  has  been  organized,  which 
they  do  not  possess"  (G.  F.  Stout,  Analytic  Psychology,  II>  p. 

113)- 

Apperception  and  Heredity. — Perception  is  not  a  matter  of 
individual  experience  only,  but  also  a  resultant  of  hereditary 
tendencies.  That  a  human  being  can  accumulate  so  many 
experiences  and  such  complex  ones  is  not  due  to  individual 
education  alone,  but  also  to  instinctive  impulses  and  inherited 
predispositions.  To  a  lower  animal  and  to  the  human  infant 
the  world  probably  is,  as  James  says,  "one  big,  blooming,  buzz- 


528 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


ing  confusion."  It  is  either  that  or  a  dead  level  of  monotony, 
because  of  the  unmeaning  signs  which  strike  upon  unattuned 
senses.  The  signs  which  mean  so  much  to  us  fall  merely  as 


I  i  .  34. — Is  the  large  end 
or  the  small  end  toward 
you? 


FIG.  35. — Is  the 
book  open  to- 
ward you  or 
away  from 

you? 


;G.  36. — Do  you  sec  the  staircase 
from  above  or  from  below  ?  T;  v 
both  ways. 


FIG.  37. — Six  or  seven  cubes? 
Invert  the  figure. 


FIG.  38. — Rabbit  or  duck? 

These  five  equivocal  figures  are  copied  from  Jastrow,  "  The 
Mind's  Eye,"  Popular  Science  Monthly. 

sound  waves  upon  the  eye  or  light  waves  upon  the  ear.  For 
example,  a  child  of  six  months  sees  nothing  in  a  drawing  or  a 
picture  except  a  few  blotches  of  color.  The  lines  and  lights 


APPERCEPTION  529 

and  shades  do  not  mean  anything  because  of  his  limited  experi- 
ence with  them.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  discern,  dogs  and  other 
animals  recognize  nothing  in  a  picture  or  a  photograph.  That 
the  child  eventually  learns  to  interpret  conventional  lines  as 
representing  objects,  while  dogs  do  not  thus  learn,  is  a  difference 
due  to  original  potentiality,  which  makes  training  possible  in 
the  one  case  and  not  in  the  other. 

Apperception  and  Illusions. — Every  drawing  or  picture  that 
we  see  depends  upon  our  former  experiences  for  its  interpreta- 
tion. Lines  arranged  in  conventional  ways  have  come  through 
experience  to  mean  certain  things.  A  drawing  or  painting  shows 
perspective  only  because  we  put  into  the  representation  what  is 
not  really  there.  Because  of  varied  experiences  we  are  able  to 
see  some  combinations  of  lines  and  colors  in  different  ways.  If 
one  looks  at  the  accompanying  drawing  (Fig.  34)  he  can  see 
either  a  plane  figure  representing  two  squares,  one  within  the 
other,  or  the  frustum  of  a  pyramid.  This  may  appear  either 
upright  or  inverted.  It  may  easily  be  thought  of  as  a  tunnel. 
The  well-known  equivocal  figure  of  a  book  (Fig.  35),  the  stairs 
which  may  be  seen  from  above  or  from  below  (Fig.  36),  or  the 
famous  "six-seven"  cubes  (Fig.  37),  all  illustrate  the  same 
principle  of  apperception  in  interpreting  drawings.  The  "rab- 
bit or  duck?"  figure  can  be  seen  either  way  (Fig.  38),  but  how 
it  is  seen  first,  depends  much  upon  where  the  attention  happens 
to  centre.  In  the  stair-case  figure  the  reason  why  it  is  so  much 
easier  to  see  the  stairs  from  above  is  not  because  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  lines  themselves  that  necessitate  it.  The  representa- 
tion is  equally  as  good  for  stairs  from  below.  The  real  reason 
of  the  mind's  bias  toward  the  other  view  comes  from  the  experi- 
ences gained  in  the  multiple  number  of  times  we  have  perceived 
the  stairs  from  above  compared  with  the  scarcity  of  experiences 
in  viewing  them  from  below.  It  is  even  easier  for  us  to  perceive 
the  stair-case  than  it  is  merely  to  see  black  lines. 

In  some  cases  previous  associations  so  bias  the  mind  that  it 
is  impossible  to  perceive  aright  what  is  given  through  sensations. 
We  then  have  illusions.  A  few  examples  may  be  cited  to  illustrate. 


530  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

(i)  The  first  one  is  known  as  Aristotle's  illusion.  Cross  the 
middle  finger  over  the  forefinger  and  place  a  marble  or  other 
spherical  object  between  the  two;  the  nose  will  do.  Note  the 
two  marbles  or  noses.  Why?  In  normal  experience  to  touch 
the  outside  of  the  first  and  second  fingers  would  necessitate  two 
objects  and  one  naturally  infers  whenever  both  are  stimulated 
that  it  is  accomplished  by  two  objects.  If  you  look  at  the 
marble  the  illusion  will  probably  disappear.  The  eyes  then 
contradict  the  skin.  Try  it  by  closing  the  eyes  and  having  some 
one  put  either  one  thing  or  two  things,  as  he  chooses,  between  the 
fingers.  The  skin  then  triumphs  over  the  eyes,  and  the  illusion 
returns.  (2)  A  string  of  a  given  length  drawn  slowly  through 
the  closed  fingers  of  a  blindfolded  person  seems  much  longer  to 
him  than  the  same  string  drawn  through  rapidly.  The  length 
of  the  string  is  judged  by  the  length  of  time  it  is  in  contact  with 
the  skin.  When  one  is  blindfolded  sight  cannot  counteract  the 
perception  gained  through  touch.  (3)  All  are  familiar  with  the 
illusion  produced,  and  practically  impossible  to  dispel,  when  one 
looks  out  of  a  car  window  at  another  train  close  against  the  one 
in  which  one  is  sitting.  As  motion  is  only  relative,  it  is  imma- 
terial whether  we  or  other  objects  move.  So  long  as  we  per- 
sonally are  not  producing  the  movement,  and  only  the  two 
objects  are  visible,  it  is  impossible  to  decide  which  is  stationary 
and  which  in  motion.  (4)  Why  does  the  rising  full  .moon 
appear  so  much  larger  on  the  horizon  than  in  the  zenith  ?  Vari- 
ous answers  have  been  given,  each  one  based  upon  the  theory 
of  apperception.  The  most  satisfactory  is  the  one  which  takes 
into  account  the  relation  between  the  distance  of  the  object 
from  the  eye  and  the  angle  which  it  subtends.  An  object  filling 
a  given  visual  angle  and  thought  to  be  far  away  is  judged  to  be 
larger  than  one  filling  the  same  angle  but  thought  to  be  nearer. 
This  is  true  because  objects  of  different  sizes  at  a  given  distance 
from  the  eye,  or  a  given  object  at  varying  distances  produce 
retinal  images  of  different  sizes.  The  relations  obtaining 
between  these  factors  will  be  rendered  clear  by  the  accompany- 
ing diagram  (Fig.  39). 


APPERCEPTION  531 

Hence,  in  order  to  determine  either  size  or  distance  the  other 
factor  must  enter  the  judgment.  Not  always  knowing  these 
elements,  the  mind  frequently  misjudges.  The  judgment  is 
usually  subconscious  but  just  as  certainly  affected.  In  fact,  even 
though  we  come  to  know  differently  we  cannot  always  remove 
the  impression  which  has  been  built  up  from  former  experiences. 
(5)  The  sky  does  not  seem  to  be  the  interior  of  a  perfect  hollow 
hemisphere,  but  appears  flattened.  This  is  because  the  space 
on  the  plane  of  the  horizon  is  filled  with  intervening  objects  and 


FIG.   39. — To  explain  the  varying  appearance  of  the 
size  of  the  moon  in  different  positions  in  the  sky. 

This  figure  relating  to  the  appearance  of  the  moon  is  copied  from  Wundt's 
Grundzuge  der  Physiologischen  Psychologic,  II,  p.  201,  4th  ed. 

consequently  is  estimated  to  be  greater  than  the  empty  space 
between  the  observer  and  the  zenith.  (6)  Objects  look  larger 
in  a  fog  because,  being  dim,  they  seem  farther  away  than  they 
really  are.  In  a  clear  atmosphere,  like  that  of  Colorado,  objects 
seem  nearer  than  they  really  are,  and  also  seem  smaller  because 
they  seem  so  near.  The  tenderfoot  starts  to  walk  to  the  foot- 
hills before  breakfast,  when  the  journey  requires  an  all-day  ride 
with  a  horse.  (7)  The  variously  estimated  size  of  the  new  moon 
just  appearing  above  the  horizon  is  very  interesting.  One  per- 
son will  say  that  it  is  about  as  large  as  a  silver  dollar,  another 
as  large  as  a  wash-tub,  while  some  think  it  as  large  as  the  hind 
wheel  of  a  wagon.  (8)  Le  Conte1  suggests  the  following  ex- 

1  Physiology  and  Morphology  of  Animals,  p.   154. 


532  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

periment  to  enable  one  to  realize  the  relation  between  size  and 
distance:  " Look  at  the  setting  sun  steadily  for  a  moment.  The 
image  of  the  sun  is  branded  on  the  retina  so  strongly  that  the 
brand  remains  for  some  time.  Now,  every  change  in  the  retina, 
whether  it  be  image  or  shadow  or  brand,  is  seen  as  something  in 
trie  field  of  view.  With  the  sun-brand  still  on  the  retina,  look 
where  we  will — on  the  wall,  on  the  floor,  on  the  sky — we  see  a 
spectral  image  of  the  sun.  Now  as  to  the  size.  Look  on  a 
sheet  of  paper  two  feet  off;  the  image  cast  on  the  sheet  is  about 
a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  Look  at  the  wall  twenty  feet 
off;  the  image  is  a  little  more  than  two  inches  in  diameter. 
Look  at  a  building  one  hundred  feet  off;  the  image  is  about  ten 
inches  in  diameter." 

Persons  congenitally  blind  acquire  the  habit  of  interpreting 
the  qualities  of  external  objects  by  means  of  the  other  senses. 
When  operations,  are  performed  enabling  them  to  see,  they 
retain,  frequently  for  a  long  period,  the  former  method  of  apper- 
ceiving  objects.  Cheselden  records  that  one  youth  on  receiving 
vision  for  the  first  time  at  about  twelve  years  of  age  "  saw  every- 
thing flat  as  in  a  picture,  simply  receiving  the  consciousness  of 
the  impression  made  upon  his  retina;  and  it  was  some  time 
before  he  acquired  the  power  of  judging,  by  his  sight  of  the  real 
forms  and  distances  around  him."  Another  boy,  after  receiving 
his  sight,  on  returning  to  his  home  went  about  the  old  familiar 
places  shutting  his  eyes,  though  he  opened  them  on  going  to 
new  places.  It  was  some  time,  however,  before  he  came  to  rely 
upon  the  sense  of  sight  for  the  usual  knowledge.1  Carpenter 
states  another  case  described  by  Critchett  in  which  a  girl  after 
being  operated  upon  never  could  identify  an  object  by  sight 
alone,  although  she  could  make  out  its  shape  and  color.  "It 
was  curious  to  place  before  her  some  very  familiar  object  that 
she  had  never  compared  in  this  way,  such  as  a  pair  of  scissors. 
She  would  describe  their  shape,  color,  glistening  metallic  char- 
acter, but  would  fail  in  ascertaining  what  they  really  were,  until 
she  put  a  finger  on  them,  when  in  an  instant  she  would  name 

1  Carpenter,  Mental  Physiology,  p.  180. 


APPERCEPTION  533 

them,  and  laugh  at  her  own  stupidity,  as  she  called  it,  in  not 
having  made  them  out  before."  1  The  reader  will  also  recall 
the  cases  cited  under  sensory  training  which  illustrate  the  same 
principles. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  hallucinations  are  produced  in 
the  minds  of  superstitious  people,  especially  when  in  lonely 
places  at  night.  Their  minds  being  full  of  things  they  "might 
happen  to  see,"  the  wonder  is  not  that  they  see  so  much  but 
that  they  do  not  see  more.  Every  streak  of  moonlight,  every 
stump,  every  shadow,  is  instantly  transformed  into  the  object 
they  have  in  mind.  Many  other  illustrations  of  illusions  due  to 
apperception,  and  easily  observable,  will  readily  occur  to  the 
reader.  The  foregoing  experiments  and  illustrations  will  serve 
to  call  attention  to  the  part  which  the  mind  plays  through  its  pre- 
perceptions  and  apperceptions  in  understanding  the  multitude 
of  stimulations  which  come  to  us.  Only  those  which  have 
become  signs  and  symbols  through  experience  are  of  any  signifi- 
cance to  us.  Hence,  it  becomes  of  much  importance  in  teaching 
to  recognize  that  the  learner  can  only  assimilate  those  facts  for 
which  the  mind  through  its  previous  stock  of  ideas  has  been 
prepared. 

EDUCATIONAL  SUGGESTIONS 

Proceed  from  Concrete  to  Abstract. — A  study  of  apperception 
re-enforces  the  idea  of  the  necessity  of  proceeding  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract.  Unless  the  individual  elements  in  a 
concept  are  thoroughly  understood,  it  is  impossible  to  compre- 
hend them  as  a  totality  in  their  complex  relations.  Instead  of 
beginning  with  definitions,  abstract  principles,  and  laws,  the 
meaning  of  them  should  first  be  made  clear.  Otherwise  the 
statements  are  mere  empty  words.  Every  concept  should  have 
its  concrete  examples  to  which  the  mind  can  turn  for  illustration 
at  any  time.  The  child  mind  deals  with  the  concrete  and  any 
education  that  attempts  to  foist  abstractions  upon  it  will  produce 

1  op.  dt.,  p.  189. 


534  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

but  a  veneering  that  is  sure  to  scale  off.  Much  that  is  told 
pupils  is  so  abstract  and  general  as  to  be  practically  meaningless. 
Unless  they  can  form  concrete  images  which  may  be  used  as 
measures  of  the  thing  talked  about  the  idea  is  hazy  and  fades 
quickly.  Those  ideas  which  have  been  built  up  either  through 
sense-perceptions  bit  by  bit  or  through  imagery  in  much  the 
same  way  are  the  ones  that  persist.  We  constantly  appeal  to  the 
child  through  our  own  experiences  instead  of  through  his.  We 
expect  him  to  comprehend  the  complex  abstractions  and  the 
conventionalities  of  which  we  speak  to  him  in  an  almost  unknown 
tongue.  Christ  as  a  teacher  was  far  wiser.  Notice  how  he 
selected  his  illustrations  from  the  every-day  life  of  his  hearers. 
Though  a  carpenter  himself,  he  never  used  illustrations  from 
that  occupation,  but  he  recalled  his  hearers'  experiences  as 
shepherds,  as  husbandmen,  as  fishermen,  etc.  Illustrations 
leading  up  to  great  truths  were  always  selected  from  experiences 
near  at  hand.  He  recalled  the  sparrow,  the  foxes,  the  lilies  of 
the  field,  the  seed-time  and  harvest,  the  sower  who  went  forth  to 
sow,  the  manna  in  the  wilderness,  the  widow's  mite,  the  Phari- 
see, and  the  publican — objects  with  which  they  were  all  familiar. 
Should  we  not  begin  our  instruction  of  children  with  experi- 
ences personally  familiar  to  the  particular  children  taught,  and 
make  the  teaching  radiate  from  those?  The  point  of  contact 
for  the  city  child  is  of  one  kind  and  for  the  country  child  another. 
Imagine  the  city  child  struggling  with  the  verse,  "The  Lord  is 
my  shepherd,  I  shall  not  want."  The  metaphor  suggests 
imagery  entirely  foreign  to  him.  Canon  Tristam  relates  that 
while  in  missionary  work  in  Ceylon  he  was  once  "addressing, 
through  an  interpreter,  a  large  congregation  of  native  Christians, 
and,  unfortunately,  chose  the  subject  of  the  Good  Shepherd. 
My  interpreter  told  me  afterward  that  not  one  of  my  hearers 
had  ever  seen  a  sheep,  or  knew  what  it  was.  'How,  then,  did 
you  explain  what  I  said?'  I  asked.  'Oh!'  he  replied,  'I  turned 
it  into  a  buffalo  that  had  lost  its  calf,  and  went  into  the  jungle 
to  find  it.'  This  interpreter  probably  knew  nothing  of  the 
science  of  teaching,  and  yet  he  had  an  instinctive  sense  of  the 


APPERCEPTION  535 

principle  of  the  point  of  contact  on  the  plane  of  experience."  l 
Children  appropriate  words  so  easily  that  they  frequently  deceive 
others  into  thinking  they  possess  real  knowledge  when  they  have 
absolutely  no  comprehension  of  what  they  are  talking  about. 
Dr.  Dewey  says:  "While  I  was  visiting  in  the  city  of  Moline  a 
few  years  ago,  the  superintendent  told  me  they  found  many 
children  every  year  who  were  surprised  to  learn  that  the  Missis- 
sippi River  in  the  text-book  had  anything  to  do  with  the  stream 
of  water  flowing  past  their  homes." 

Inventory  the  Pupil's  Knowledge. — A  study  of  apperception 
presses  the  conclusion  that  before  attempting  to  impart  new 
instruction  a  careful  inventory  of  the  mind  should  be  made. 
This  is  true  not  only  for  a  new  year,  or  a  new  term,  but  also 
for  each  day  and  before  each  lesson  unit  is  presented.  This 
is  the  object  of  an  examination  for  entrance  to  a  new  class,  a 
higher  grade,  or  a  new  school.  It  is  necessary  to  know  whether 
the  pupils  are  prepared  for  the  new  instruction  to  be  given. 
Although  this  is  usually  done  in  a  general  way,  it  would  be  ad- 
vantageous if  much  more  attention  were  given  to  determining 
the  mental  attitude  of  every  class  which  an  instructor  meets  for 
the  first  time.  This  is  true  whether  in  the  kindergarten  or 
the  university.  It  is  the  height  of  pedagogic  absurdity  for  a 
teacher  to  start  lecturing  and  continue  lecturing  for  weeks  and 
months  without  affording  an  opportunity  for  the  listeners  to 
disclose  their  fitness  for  listening.  The  search  for  the  condi- 
tion of  the  learners  need  not  be  formal,  but  some  sufficient  op- 
portunity for  reaction  individually  and  collectively  should  be 
afforded. 

Individual  Differences. — In  the  primary  grades  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  time  should  be  devoted  to  studying  the  exact 
status  of  each  individual  in  the  class.  In  every  group  of  forty 
first-grade  pupils  entering  in  September  there  are  ordinarily 
ten  per  cent,  who  do  not  need  to  remain  in  that  grade  a  month. 
Another  twenty-five  per  cent,  could  be  promoted  or  at  least 
should  be  separated  from  the  rest  by  the  middle  of  the  year. 

1  Du  Bois,  The  Point  of  Contact  in  Teaching,  p.  91. 


536  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

CHILDREN'S  IGNORANCE  OF  COMMON  THINGS 


NAME  OF  OBJECT  OF  CONCEPTION 


PER   CENT.    OF   CHILDREN    IGNORANT   OF  IT 


IN   BOSTON 


IN   KANSAS   CITY 


Beehive 80.0 

Crow 77.0 

Ant 65.5 

Squirrel 63.0 

Robin 60.5 

Sparrow 57.5 

Sheep 54.0 

Bee 52.0 

Frog 50.0 

Pig 47-5 

Chicken 33.5 

Worm 22.0 

Butterfly 20.5 

Hen 19.0 

Cow 18.5 

Growing  wheat     ....  92.5 

Elm 91.5 

Oak 87.0 

Pine 87.0 

Maple 83.0 

Growing  moss 81.5 

strawberries     .     .  78.5 

clover      ....  74.0 

beans      ....  71.5 

corn 65.5 

potatoes       ...  61.0 

apples     ....  21.0 

dandelion     .     .     .  52.0 
Knows: 

Right  and  left  hand  .     .     .  21.5 

Cheek 18.0 

Forehead 15.0 

Throat '       13.5 

Knee 7.0 

Stomach 6.0 

Season 75.5 

Seen: 

Dew 78.0 

Hail  .      .......  73.0 

Rainbow 65.0 

Sunrise 56.5 

Sunset 53.5 

Clouds 35.0 


59-4 
47-3 
21.5 
iS-o 
30.6 

3-5 
7-3 
2.7 

i-7 

o-5 
•5 
•5 
.1 

5-2 
23-4 
52-4 
62.2 

65.6 

31.2 

3°-7 
26.5 


i.o 

•5 

•5 

i.i 

1.6 

27.2 

31.8 


13.6 
10.3 
16.6 

19-5 

7-3 


66.0 

59-o 
19.1 

4-2 

10.6 


4-2 


66.0 
89.8 
58.6 
87.2 
80.8 

42-5 
i.i 


45-9 


70.2 
18.1 


APPERCEPTION 
CHILDREN'S  IGNORANCE  OF  COMMON  THINGS 


537 


NAMF.  OF  OBJECT  OF  CONCEPTION 


PER   CENT.    01    CHILDREN    IGNORANT   OF   IT 


IN   BOSTON 


IN   KANSAS   CITY 


Moon 7.0 

Stars 14.0 

Conception  of: 

Island 87.5 

Beach 55.0 

Woods 53.5 

River 48.0 

Pond 40.0 

Hill 28.0 

Brook 15.0 

Triangle 92.0 

Square 56.0 

Circle 35.0 

Five 28.5 

Four 17.0 

Three 8.0 

Seen  at  work: 

Watchmaker 68.0 

Bricklayer 44.5 

Shoemaker 25.0 

Seen: 

File 65.0 

Plough 64.5 

Spade 62.0 

Hoe 61.0 

Axe 12. o 

Knows  by  name: 

Green 15.0 

Yellow 13.5 

Blue 14.0 

Red 9.0 

Origin  oj: 

Leather 93.4 

Cotton  Goods 90.0 

Flour 89.0 

Bricks 81.1 

Woolen  Goods      ....  69.0 

Butter 50.5 

Meat 48.0 

Milk 20.5 

Knows: 

Shape  of  world      ....  70.3 


26.0 
3-° 


30.1 

IO.I 

8.7 

20.8 

*3-9 
7-3 
S-o 

18.4 


50.8 
35-7 
34-7 
33-1 
SS-o 
6.7 

8-3 
4.0 

46.0 


53-o 


49-7 

2.1 


36.1 

8-5 
15.0 

10.6 
53-o 


72-3 
15.0 

57-4 

53-° 
44.0 

12.7 


47.0 


538  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Another  group  will  need  special  attention  and  will  not  be  ready 
to  go  on  even  at  the  end  of  the  year.  But  how  often  the  Septem- 
ber consignment  is  bunched  together,  once  for  all,  labelled,  put 
through  the  same  process,  pressed,  pushed,  pulled,  ground,  and 
stretched,  until  they  appear  uniform,  and  are  ready  to  be  ticketed 
and  passed  on  to  the  next  grade  or  department.  Thus  they 
stay  together  except  as  death  or  disgust  separates  them.  No  fact 
of  modern  psychology  is  more  important  than  that  there  are 
countless  individual  differences  which  must  be  recognized  in  all 
good  teaching.  These  differences  must  be  sought  and  individ- 
uals ministered  to  accordingly. 

In  1869  an  investigation  was  carried  on  in  the  schools  of 
Berlin  to  discover  the  individuality  of  children  entering  the  city 
schools.  It  was  believed  that  the  varying  environment  of  the 
different  children  would  be  reflected  in  the  differing  ideas  of  the 
children.  The  investigators  were,  however,  not  prepared  for 
the  striking  differences  which  appeared  in  the  returns.  They 
found  that  many  were  ignorant  of  the  commonest  objects  in 
their  environment,  while  others  manifested  knowledge  far  supe- 
rior to  anything  anticipated.  This  investigation  has  indirectly 
stimulated  a  great  many  others  of  a  similar  nature.  The  classic 
among  studies  in  this  line  is  the  one  undertaken  by  Dr.  G. 
Stanley  Hall  in  1880,  in  the  primary  schools  of  Boston.  He  had 
the  co-operation  of  Superintendent  Seaver  and  the  painstaking 
assistance  of  four  trained  kindergartners.  These  trained  women 
were  employed  by  the  hour  to  question  the  children  in  groups  of 
three.  This  individual  method  enabled  them  to  test  ideas  in  a 
great  variety  of  ways.  By  this  means  they  eliminated  the  inac- 
curacies which  might  easily  arise  from  a  lack  of  words  or  through 
a  confusion  of  terminology.  Precautions  were  taken  to  avoid 
schools  where  the  children  came  from  homes  representing  ex- 
tremes of  either  culture  or  ignorance.  Statistics  were  secured 
from  about  200  children.  In  1883,  shortly  after  Dr.  Hall's 
study  was  published,  Superintendent  Greenwood,  of  Kansas 
City,  tested  with  a  part  of  Dr.  Hall's  questions  678  children 
from  the  lowest  primary  class  in  that  city.  Of  the  children 


APPERCEPTION  539 

tested,  47  were  colored.  Because  of  the  great  importance  which 
these  studies  have  assumed  extended  quotations  are  made  from 
the  tables  and  from  Dr.  Hall's  comments.1 

Dr.  Hall  says  that  from  the  foregoing  tables  "  it  seems  not  too 
much  to  infer:  (i)  That  there  is  next  to  nothing  of  pedagogic 
value  the  knowledge  of  which  it  is  safe  to  assume  at  the  outset 
of  school-life.  Hence  the  need  of  objects  and  the  danger  of 
books  and  word  cram.  Hence  many  of  the  best  primary  teach- 
ers in  Germany  spend  from  two  to  four  or  even  six  months  in 
talking  of  objects  and  drawing  them  before  any  beginning  of 
what  we  till  lately  have  regarded  as  primary-school  work.  (2) 
The  best  preparation  parents  can  give  their  children  for  good 
school-training  is  to  make  them  acquainted  with  natural  objects, 
especially  with  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  country,  and  send 
them  to  good  and  hygienic,  as  distinct  from  the  most  fashionable, 
kindergartens.  (3)  Every  teacher  on  starting  with  a  new  class 
or  in  a  new  locality,  to  make  sure  that  his  efforts  along  some 
lines  are  not  utterly  lost,  should  undertake  to  explore  carefully 
section  by  section  the  children's  minds  with  all  the  tact  and 
ingenuity  he  can  command  and  acquire,  to  determine  exactly 
what  is  already  shown;  and  every  normal-school  pupil  should 
undertake  work  of  the  same  kind  as  an  essential  part  of  his 
training.  (4)  The  concepts  which  are  most  common  in  the 
children  of  a  given  locality  are  the  earliest  to  be  acquired,  while 
the  rarer  ones  are  later." 

It  should  not  be  understood  that  the  tables  are  to  be  regarded 
as  supplying  averages  which  will  measure  the  knowledge  that 
all  children  of  corresponding  ages  ought  to  possess.  The  facts 
contained  in  the  table  are  designed  to  show,  first,  how  poorly 
children  frequently  understand  terms  that  are  used  in  their 
earliest  instruction;  second,  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
ascertain  what  the  child  has  as  capital  before  beginning  to 
instruct  him  in  new  things;  third,  to  show  what  great  differences 
there  are  among  children  surrounded  by  different  conditions. 

1  "The  Contents  of  Children's  Minds  on  Entering  School,"  Pedagogical 
Seminary,  I  :  139-173. 


540  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

The  differences  shown  for  children  in  different  cities  are  typical 
of  the  differences  that  could  easily  be  found  among  individual 
children  in  the  same  community  or  even  in  the  same  family. 
Though  environed  by  the  same  conditions,  different  children 
appropriate  or  assimilate  them  differently.  The  individual 
child  must  be  studied  and  ministered  unto.  A  study  of  the 
apperceptive  contents  of  various  minds  reveals  the  necessity  of 
emphasizing  individual  psychology  in  education  much  more 
than  has  been  done. 

Apperception  and  Reading. — One  main  reason  why  pupils 
often  fail  to  appreciate  literature  is  that  they  are  given  material 
which  relates  to  ideas  which  they  never  have  experienced.  Dur- 
ing childhood  and  youth  they  are  frequently  assigned  literature 
dealing  with  adult  philosophy.  The  whole  periods  of  childhood 
and  youth  are  thus  slurred  over  and  the  instincts  of  those  pe- 
riods sinned  against  by  not  offering  them  more  material  suitable 
for  the  nourishment  of  immature  minds.  To  indicate  what  is 
suitable  for  each  age  is  difficult  and  we  have  but  begun  to  make 
a  scientific  selection  and  adaptation.  In  fact  it  is  doubtful 
whether  much  good  literature  for  childhood  has  been  written. 
Serious  attempts  are  being  made  to  produce  books  on  history, 
biography,  travel,  and  science  that  will  interest,  instruct,  and 
arouse  pupils  of  different  ages,  but  from  a  recent  extended  ex- 
amination of  hundreds  of  books  submitted  by  various  publishing 
houses  in  competition  for  a  place  in  a  State  school  library  list,  I 
am  led  to  believe  that  there  are  published  tons  of  undesirable 
material  to  pounds  of  suitable  material. 

Robinson  Crusoe,  certain  selections  from  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson and  Eugene  Field,  special  selections  from  the  Bible,  and 
some  fairy  stories  and  folk-lore  appeal  to  children  because  the 
language  and  the  meaning  are  both  simple  enough  to  be  inter- 
preted through  childish  experiences.  But  even  many  selections 
from  Field  and  Stevenson,  though  using  children  as  characters, 
deal  with  a  philosophy  of  life  so  profound  that  children  get  no 
inkling  of  meaning  from  them.  They  deal  with  children  as  seen 
by  adults  and  not  as  children  see  themselves.  Miss  Alcott  and 


APPERCEPTION  541 

some  others  have  been  singularly  happy  in  appealing  to  children 
by  revealing  childhood  without  being  childish.  It  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  many  fairy  stories  appeal  to  children  so  much 
because  understood  as  because  they  possess  a  weird  fascination. 
The  horrible  in  literature  may  fascinate  the  child  as  a  snake  may 
fascinate  a  bird.  But  the  interest  may  be  painful.  The  san- 
guinary fairy  story  may  hold  the  child  much  as  murder  recitals 
and  other  sensational  stuff  in  the  daily  papers  fascinate  the  multi- 
tudes. To  say  that  therefore  they  are  the  best,  however,  is  an 
unwarranted  conclusion. 

The  adolescent  period  with  its  own  peculiar  instincts  blossom- 
ing out  furnishes  an  apperceptive  background  which  must  be 
comprehended  and  heeded  else  all  literary  instruction  furnished 
will  miscarry.  A  wealth  of  hitherto  dormant  impulses,  emo- 
tional and  intellectual,  now  furnish  both  a  motive  for  unexplain- 
able  activities  and  also  that  attitude  which  causes  them  to 
vibrate  in  sympathetic  unison  with  the  ideals  represented  in  cer- 
tain types  of  literature.  Apperception  masses,  as  before  inti- 
mated, are  not  only  individual  acquisitions,  but  racial.  The 
suddenly  widened  interests  caused  by  newly  developed  instincts 
and  enlarged  experience  necessitate  a  wide  range  and  variety  of 
literature.  To  name  all  kinds  demanded  at  that  time  is  unnec- 
essary and  impossible.  A  few  suggestions  may  be  of  some 
service.  Dr.  Hall  writes:1  "On  entering  the  high  school  the 
average  child  has  essentially  passed  the  stage  of  juvenile  read- 
ing. Animal,  detective,  wildly  romantic,  and  outlaw  themes  are 
on  the  wane,  but  there  is  a  rapid  rise  of  the  curve  of  normal 
interest  in  travel,  biography,  exploration,  adventure,  literature 
with  abundant  action,  perhaps  dramatic,  but  always  somewhat 
exciting  and  adventurous.  Every  census,  now  scores  in  all, 
shows  that  in  the  early  teens  there  is  for  the  average  child  some- 
thing of  a  reading  craze,  as  if  now  for  the  first  time  the  mind  took 
flight  in  the  world  of  books.  ...  It  is,  however,  the  reading  of 
the  prospector  and  not  of  the  miner,  the  age  of  skipping  and 
sampling  and  pressing  the  keys  lightly,  until  something  absorb- 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  9  :  99. 


542  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

ing  is  found  that  feeds  the  soul.  Girls,  who  always  read  most 
poetry,  not  only  like  most  that  boys  do,  but  exceed  them  in 
preference  for  books  by  women  authors,  which  boys  eschew, 
also  in  those  which  centre  in  domestic  life  and  with  children  in 
them."  Chubb  says:1  "The  quickly  budding  instincts  .  .  . 
must  get  a  chance  to  deploy  themselves  and  reveal  their  signifi- 
cance. ...  In  our  choice  of  literature  we  must  accommodate 
ourselves  to  certain  marked  changes  that  overtake  the  boy  and 
girl  during  the  four  years  of  high-school  life.  For  instance,  it 
ought  to  meet  and  form  and  exalt  the  nascent  sex-consciousness 
by  literature  that  touches  nobly  and  simply  the  theme  of  roman- 
tic love,  and  presents  healthy  and  formative  types  of  manhood 
and  womanhood.  It  ought  to  provide  food  and  outlet  for  the 
religious  and  ethical  instincts  that  mature  during  what  is  pre- 
eminently the  period  of  'conversions,'  as  the  psychologists  tell 
us.  It  ought  to  feed  that  feeling  for  Nature  which  one  statis- 
tician records  as  the  most  universal  of  the  emotions  of  youth. 
And  it  ought  to  cater  mildly  to  those  sudden,  and  also  generally 
short-lived,  'crazes'  for  different  forms  of  art,  music,  acting, 
etc.,  which  are  manifestations  of  a  quickened  sensitiveness  to 
beauty." 

Besides  the  racial  apperceptions  in  the  form  of  instincts  and 
impulses,  there  are  innumerable  personal  peculiarities  which 
should  be  taken  into  account.  Individual  acquisitions  are  as 
varied  as  the  number  of  individuals.  Considering  heredity  and 
environment  as  determinants  in  producing  a  given  type  of  mind 
we  see  that  the  number  of  permutations  is  endless.  Hence  the 
necessity  of  studying  each  individual  in  order  at  least  to  discover 
and  minister  to  some  of  his  more  important  needs.  The  stock 
of  ideas  of  the  country  boy  will  differ  radically  from  that  of  the 
denizen  of  the  city.  In  many  cases,  of  course,  an  adequate  ap- 
perceptive  basis  for  the  study  of  a  given  selection  could  be  built 
up  by  proper  preparation.  It  would  be  a  safe  rule  that  no  selec- 
tion should  be  studied  unless  the  pupils  had  an  experimental  basis 
for  apperception,  or  by  proper  preparation  might  secure  such. 

1  The  Teaching  of  English,  p.  242. 


APPERCEPTION  543 

Baker  observes1  that  "If,  as  has  been  asserted,  the  power  to 
form  the  picture  is  the  condition  of  enjoyment  of  the  scene,  we 
must  take  account  of  the  stock  of  memories  which  the  pupils 
have  and  out  of  which  they  are  to  make  the  new  picture.  Ob- 
viously there  are  wide  differences  in  their  mental  outfits.  The 
observant  country  boy  would  need  no  help  to  see  Whittier's 
Barefoot  Boy  or  Bryant's  Waterfowl  except  the  stimulating 
questions  of  the  teacher.  But  the  ocean  to  an  untravelled 
inland  boy,  or  the  scenes  of  Snow  Bound  to  a  Southern  boy, 
would  be  very  vague.  So  the  wild  mountain  scenery  of  Scott, 
or  the  masterpieces  of  art,  or  the  scenes  of  conflict  involving 
long-past  customs  and  accoutrements,  may  lose  much  of  their 
vividness  for  lack  of  a  background  of  appropriate  memories. 
It  is  here  that  the  importance  of  illustrative  material  appears." 
Bullock  concluded  from  an  investigation2  that  war  stories  seem 
popular  with  third-grade  boys,  and  that  liking  seems  well  marked 
through  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades.  Stories  of  advent- 
ure are  popular  all  through  the  heroic  period,  reaching  their 
maximum  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  grades.  The  liking  for  biog- 
raphy and  travel  or  exploration  grows  gradually  to  a  climax  in 
the  ninth  grade,  and  remains  well  up  through  the  course.  The 
tender  sentiment  has  little  charm  for  the  average  grade  boy,  and 
only  in  the  high-school  course  does  he  acknowledge  any  consid- 
erable use  of  love  stories.  In  the  sixth  grade  he  is  fond  of  detec- 
tive stories,  but  they  lose  their  charm  for  him  as  he  grows  older. 
For  girls,  stories  of  adventure  are  popular  in  the  sixth  grade,  and 
stories  of  travel  are  always  enjoyed.  "The  girl  likes  biography, 
but  in  the  high  school,  true  to  her  sex,  she  prefers  stories  of  great 
women  rather  than  great  men,"  but,  according  to  Hall,  because 
she  cannot  get  them  reads  those  of  men.  Kirkpatrick  says:3 
"The  fact  that  boys  read  about  twice  as  much  history  and  travel 
as  girls  and  only  about  two-thirds  as  much  poetry  and  stories 
shows  beyond  question  that  the  emotional  and  intellectual  wants 

1  The  Teaching  of  English,  p.  170. 

2  Some  Observations  on  Children's  Reading,  Proc.  N.  E.  A.,  1897,  p.  1015. 

3  Northwestern  Monthly,  9  :  229. 


544  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

of  boys  and  girls  are  essentially  different  before  sexual  maturity."  * 
Dr.  Hall  deprecates  the  fact  that  the  English  teaching  of  the 
present  apotheosizes  form,  stresses  philological  ramifications  and 
syntactical  relations,  and  gives  such  a  barren  waste  of  literary 
content.  Adolescents  need  above  all  a  wide  field  of  virile  litera- 
ture to  secure  for  them  the  deepest  self-revelation. 

Apperception  and  Geography. — The  absolute  necessity  of  inter- 
preting that  which  is  new,  strange,  and  foreign  in  terms  of 
familiar,  well-digested  ideas  suggests  definitely  the  psychological 
order  of  procedure  in  teaching  geography.  Although  the  ulti- 
mate aim  in  teaching  geography  should  be  to  awaken  an  interest 
in  and  an  understanding  of  that  which  is  beyond  the  sweep  of 
the  physical  eye,  yet  children  will  ever  see  through  a  glass  darkly 
unless  that  which  is  to  be  constructed  in  imagery  has  first  been 
made  possible  through  experience.  Moreover  a  desire  to  part 
the  curtain  which  veils  the  unknown  must  be  developed  out  of 
some  personal  interest.  Otherwise  everything  is  learned  in  a 
purely  perfunctory  way.  Interest  is  absolutely  dependent  on 
apperceptive  knowledge.  A  white  heat  of  interest  is  never 
kindled  for  anything  except  through  a  mind  brimfull  of  com- 
bustible ideas  connected  with  it. 

Geography  like  charity  must  begin  at  home.  The  Germans 
have  developed  home  geography  teaching  in  a  way  that  should 
be  emulated  everywhere.  It  is  no  unusual  sight  to  see  a  teacher 
conducting  a  class  of  thirty  or  forty  pupils  on  a  half-day's  excur- 
sion. The  whole  troop  generally  have  their  knapsacks  contain- 
ing luncheon  and  note-books.  They  go  to  places  of  historical 
and  geographical  interest,  they  see  objects  of  natural  science, 
etc.  The  teacher  explains;  the  pupils  question,  make  notes  and 
drawings,  gather  specimens,  and  in  every  way  gain  first-hand 
impressions  of  the  vicinity.  These  lessons  form  the  basis  for 
further  discussions,  recitations,  and  language  lessons.  They  are 
supplemented  by  additional  talks,  collateral  readings,  and  are 
stored  away  as  the  genuine  basis  from  which  new  knowledge 

1  See  Hall's  Adolescence,  II,  p.  475,  el  seq.,  for  further  quotations  and  observa- 
tions. 


APPERCEPTION  545 

radiates.  Each  lesson  is  preceded  by  a  careful  preparation  for 
what  they  are  to  see.  This  prevents  desultoriness.  Frequently 
older  boys  of  a  school  are  taken  by  a  teacher  upon  excursions 
lasting  a  week. 

Apperception  in  History  and  Civics. — Historical  teaching  to 
be  well  done  must  similarly  consider  the  laws  of  apperception. 
A  chronological  order  would  dictate  commencing  at  the  begin- 
ning of  things  and  tracing  events  in  an  orderly  time-sequence. 
A  logical  or  philosophical  order  would  necessitate  a  considera- 
tion of  causes  and  effects.  But  logical  and  chronological 
sequences  are  frequently  unpsychological  from  the  teaching 
stand-point.  The  child's  ability  to  comprehend  and  his  interest 
are  the  only  safe  guides.  The  latter  is,  as  previously  noted, 
largely  conditioned  by  the  former.  Especially  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  course  the  pupil  must  be  given  such  facts  of  history 
as  can  be  comprehended  and  as  inspire  interest  in  historical 
study.  The  order  of  the  books  matters  little.  What  boots  it  if 
we  present  the  story  of  Alexander  the  Great  to-day,  George 
Washington  to-morrow,  and  Napoleon  the  next  day,  or  whether 
the  order  be  reversed,  provided  the  above  conditions  have  been 
observed?  There  will  come  a  time  in  later  historical  study 
when  the  chronological  and  institutional  order  will  need  to  be 
followed  if  the  student  is  to  be  versed  in  systematic  history. 
But  in  the  beginning  the  child  is  unprepared  for  it.  Logically 
and  chronologically  the  child  in  the  elementary  school  should 
begin  with  ancient  history.  But  how  absurd  to  attempt  to 
teach  it  that  way.  The  Russo-Japanese  war,  the  freeing  of 
Cuba  and  the  Philippines  are  much  better  psychological  starting 
points.  The  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  and  Hobson's  spectacu- 
lar heroism  are  much  more  apt  to  stir  the  emotions  and  be 
studied  carefully  by  present-day  American  boys  than  are  the 
bravery  of  Leonidas  at  the  Pass  of  Thermopylae  or  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  Wars. 

Not  a  few  grammar-school  boys  and  girls  possess  as  compre- 
hensive and  accurate  knowledge  of  the  history-making  events  of 
the  day  as  do  their  elders.  The  occurrences  come  so  close  to 


546  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

them  in  time  and  interest  that  they  study  them  as  a  matter  of 
course.  This  suggests  the  correct  method  of  beginning  history. 
Those  events  which  have  a  local  and  a  personal  relation  are  the 
ones  to  choose  first.  Deeper  causes  of  these  will  be  desired 
eventually  and  when  some  of  the  effects  are  known  there  will  be 
interest  in  causes.  This  may  seem  illogical,  but  effects  always 
lend  interest  to  causes.  The  recent  San  Francisco  and  Messina 
disasters  stimulated  more  interest  in  causes  of  earthquakes  than 
had  been  manifested  in  many  a  day.  Before  studying  the  his- 
torical town-meeting  in  New  England,  why  not  develop  a  back- 
ground of  interest  and  understanding  by  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  town-meeting  as  exemplified  on  every  hand  ?  There  is 
little  doubt  that  we  are  annually  disgusting  thousands  of  boys 
and  girls  with  history  by  attempting  to  make  it  ultra-systematic 
and  philosophic.  Let  us  grant  that  our  own  civic  and  social 
life  and  its  evolution  cannot  be  completely  understood  without 
knowing  its  relation  to  English  and  Continental  history.  But 
we  are  over-zealous  to  make  boys  and  girls  interested  in  the 
evolution  of  things  they  do  not  even  know.  The  first  problem 
is  to  give  them  an  insight  into  that  life,  knowing  that  they  may 
then  become  interested  in  its  origins.  Too  often  they  are  plunged 
into  ancient  history  details  which  to  them  are  isolated  and  de- 
void of  meaning.  Even  the  names  repel  by  their  strangeness. 
A  large  fund  of  information  must  be  acquired,  just  because  it  is 
interesting,  before  we  attempt  to  systematize  it.  This  stock  of 
ideas  will  form  an  apperceiving  mass  for  the  systematic  relations 
which  we  trust  they  will  be  led  to  perceive.  But  hyper-system 
without  basal  facts  is  infinitely  worse  than  a  jumble  of  facts 
unorganized. 

The  study  of  civic,  economic,  and  social  conditions  must  like- 
wise be  begun  in  a  thoroughly  concrete  way.  Instead  of  starting 
with  books  and  forcing  undigested  theories  and  formulas  upon 
minds  inexperienced  in  observing  social  relations,  the  teacher 
should  skilfully  lead  his  pupils  to  observe  the  workings  of  the 
facts  and  forces  about  them.  Every  community  offers  a  rich 
variety  for  study.  All  the  social,  economic,  and  civic  relations 


APPERCEPTION  547 

may  be  studied  objectively  and  should  be  so  studied  before  the 
abstract  book  theories  are  studied.  Too  often  pupils  can  recite 
verbatim  the  United  States  Constitution  and  answer  (frequently 
incorrectly)  some  unusual  question  in  constitutional  law,  but  are 
entirely  innocent  of  any  real  knowledge  of  the  government  of  the 
municipality  or  the  township  in  which  they  reside.  They  do  not 
know  the  phases  of  government  represented  or  the  functions 
assumed.  They  do  not  perhaps  know  of  the  existence,  much 
less  the  manner  of  organizing,  primaries  and  caucuses.  They  do 
not  know  the  sources  of  support  for  their  public  schools,  post- 
offices,  streets,  water-works,  etc.  By  studying  the  actual  work- 
ings of  the  several  public  agencies  and  utilities  in  the  concrete 
they  can  build  up  a  background  of  experience  which  will  enable 
them  to  understand  theoretical  discussions  and  abstract  prin- 
ciples. 

Adolescent  expansion  and  groping  of  the  mind  suggest  the 
necessity  of  this  very  method.  Here  and  there  we  discern  a 
recognition  of  this  concreteness  and  the  necessity  for  building 
up  an  experimental  apperception  mass.  Professor  Thurston, 
for  years  an  instructor  in  the  Hyde  Park  high  school,  Chicago, 
has  long  "earnestly  believed  that  a  beginner  in  economics  had  a 
right  to  find  the  subject  closely  related  to  his  own  experience,  and 
that  of  his  neighbors,  so  that  he  would  seem  to  himself  to  be 
studying  the  industrial  life  of  actual  men  and  women  more  than 
books  about  this  industrial  life."1  The  same  plan  is  applicable 
to  the  study  of  civics  in  a  wider  sense.  By  any  other  method 
than  the  gathering  of  concrete  experiental  facts  preliminary  to 
theories,  pupils  gain  only  dry,  meaningless  abstractions;  they 
have  only  prattlings  about  civic  duties  and  relations,  and  know 
nothing  of  the  real  concerns  of  actual  life  as  it  pulsates  and  throbs 
about  them. 

Opportunity  for  Application  of  Knowledge. — Knowledge  to 
be  made  useful  must  be  applied.  It  is  frequently  indefinite  until 
it  has  been  applied  to  new  and  concrete  situations.  One  is  not 
master  of  a  mathematical  principle  until  he  has  tested  it  in  a 

1  Economics  and  Industrial  History  for  Secondary  Schools,  p.  7. 


548  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

specific  case.  The  engineer  who  cannot  put  his  theories  into 
practice  has  only  partially  learned  his  lessons.  The  physician 
who  does  not  know  how  to  prescribe  in  individual  cases  would 
not  be  counted  either  learned  or  skilful.  Skill  is  at  once  seen 
to  be  a  part  of  knowledge.  In  fact  complete  accuracy  is  lacking 
until  some  skill  is  acquired  in  the  use  of  facts.  Hence  knowledge 
to  become  of  greatest  apperceptive  value  must  become  of  con- 
stant use  so  that  its  relations  instantly  come  into  view  when 
needed.  An  interpreter  away  on  a  vacation  would  be  of  little 
use  to  one  in  a  critical  situation.  Similarly  knowledge  which 
might  be  of  use  could  it  only  be  marshalled,  but  so  vague  that  it 
requires  an  hour's  hunt  to  bring  it  into  requisition  is  of  small 
value.  We  are  constantly  saying:  "Of  course,  I  might  have 
known,  but  it  didn't  occur  to  me!"  Facts  which  were  in  pos- 
session should  have  been  of  use  in  evaluating  the  new  condition, 
but  they  had  not  become  habitual  accompaniments  of  our 
thinking.  The  man  with  usable  knowledge  is  the  man  of 
power. 

Apperception  and  Interest. — One  of  the  most  fundamental 
factors  in  the  development  of  interest  in  any  given  thing  is  a 
stock  of  ideas  which  enables  the  mind  to  go  out  to  meet  the  in- 
coming stimuli.  Interest  is  an  attitude  of  the  mind  toward 
definite  objects  of  thought.  It  is  impossible  to  have  a  deep  and 
abiding  interest  in  anything  about  which  absolutely  nothing  is 
known.  Sometimes  the  attention  is  momentarily  arrested  by 
utterly  strange  things;  but  unless  we  can  find  out  something 
about  it  the  curiosity  wanes.  Miners  frequently  dig  out  thou- 
sands of  fossil  remains  of  small  animals  and  occasionally  those 
of  mastodon  proportions.  Their  attention  is  diverted  momenta- 
rily because  of  the  unlikeness  to  the  coal  or  other  deposits,  but 
after  the  most  trivial  observation  they  are  consigned  to  the 
dumps.  How  differently  would  the  geologist  behave! 

Parkman,  in  describing  the  Indians  of  Fort  Laramie,  gives  an 
excellent  illustration  showing  that  interest  is  developed  only 
through  knowledge.  He  says  that  the  Indians  "were  bent  on 
inspecting  everything  in  the  room;  our  equipments  and  our 


APPERCEPTION  549 

dress  alike  underwent  their  scrutiny;  for  though  the  contrary 
has  been  carelessly  asserted,  few  beings  have  more  curiosity 
than  Indians  in  regard  to  subjects  within  their  ordinary  range 
of  thought.  As  to  other  matters,  indeed,  they  seemed  utterly 
indifferent.  They  will  not  trouble  themselves  to  inquire  into 
what  they  cannot  comprehend,  but  are  quite  contented  to  place 
their  hands  over  their  mouths  in  token  of  wonder,  and  exclaim 
that  it  is  'great  medicine!'  With  this  comprehensive  solution 
an  Indian  is  never  at  a  loss.  He  never  launches  forth  into 
speculation  and  conjecture;  his  reason  moves  in  its  beaten 
track.  His  soul  is  dormant;  and  no  exertion  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, Jesuit  or  Puritan,  of  the  Old  World  or  of  the  New, 
has  as  yet  availed  to  rouse  it."  l  When  the  Fiji  Islanders  first 
beheld  some  foreign  merchantmen  they  viewed  them  with  su- 
perstitious awe,  but  with  no  curiosity.  But  when  some  of  the 
small  boats  were  lowered  they  instantly  became  alive  with 
interest.  Similarly,  some  Eskimos,  we  are  told,  on  being  taken 
to  London  to  view  the  sights  and  receive  a  great  treat  were 
interested  in  nothing,  but  were  filled  with  disgust,  which  was 
overcome  only  when  they  accidentally  came  upon  some  boats 
and  fishing  tackle  that  resembled  products  of  their  own  manu- 
facture.2 

James  says:  "The  great  maxim  in  pedagogy  is  to  knit  every 
new  piece  of  knowledge  on  to  a  pre-existing  curiosity — /.  e.,  to 
assimilate  its  matter  in  some  way  to  what  is  already  known." 
He  illustrates  the  advantage  of  comparing  the  unknown  with  the 
personal  experience  of  the  pupil  by  the  following  example  drawn 
from  Lange's  Apperception.  "If  the  teacher  is  to  explain  the 
distance  of  the  sun  from  the  earth,  let  him  ask  ...  'If  anyone 
there  in  the  sun  fired  off  a  cannon  straight  at  you,  what  should 
you  do?'  'Get  out  of  the  way,'  would  be  the  answer.  'No 
need  of  that,'  the  teacher  might  reply.  'You  may  quietly  go  to 
sleep  in  your  room,  and  get  up  again,  you  may  wait  till  your  con- 

1  California  and  Oregon  Trail,  chap.  IX. 

-  The  relation  between  interest  and  apperception  is  more  fully  discussed  in  the 
chapter  on  Interest. 


550  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

firmation-day,  you  may  learn  a  trade,  and  grow  as  old  as  I  am — 
then  only  will  the  cannon-ball  be  getting  near,  then  you  may 
jump  to  one  side!  See,  so  great  as  that  is  the  sun's  distance!' "  l 
Frank  G.  Carpenter,  in  his  delightful  Geographical  Reader  on 
North  America,2  has  given  a  splendid  example  of  teaching  by 
appealing  to  the  child's  " apperceptive  mass"  in  building  up  a 
new  concept.  Writing  of  the  great  corn  crop  raised  in  the  seven 
States  of  the  corn  belt,  he  says:  "This  is  the  greatest  corn  patch 
on  the  globe.  It  produces  more  than  one  billion  bushels  of  corn 
every  year,  or  more  than  one-half  of  our  crop.  Now  let  us  think 
for  a  moment  how  much  corn  one  billion  bushels  is.  Suppose 
we  load  it  upon  wagons.  Forty  bushels  of  shelled  corn  forms  a 
good  load  for  two  horses.  Let  each  wagon  hold  that  amount, 
and  let  the  teams  start  at  the  Mississippi  River  and  go  eastward. 
We  shall  drive  the  teams  so  that  the  nose  of  each  horse  will  just 
reach  the  tailboard  of  the  wagon  in  front  of  it,  making  a  con- 
tinuous train  of  wagons,  each  loaded  with  forty  bushels  of  corn. 
Now,  where  would  the  first  wagon  be  when  the  last  bushel  was 
loaded  ?  At  Pittsburg,  on  the  edge  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains  ? 
No;  it  would  be  much  farther  eastward.  At  the  Atlantic 
Ocean?  No;  still  farther  eastward.  Suppose  that  the  wagons 
could  be  driven  across  the  oceans,  and  guess  again.  It  might 
perhaps  reach  almost  to  Paris,  do  I  hear  some  one  say?  Yes; 
it  would  reach,  on  and  on,  much  farther  than  that.  The  line  of 
wagons  would  extend  from  the  Mississippi  over  our  own  country 
to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  across  the  Atlantic  to  Europe,  across 
Europe  and  over  the  highlands  of  Asia,  and  then  across  the  wide 
Pacific  Ocean.  It  would  not  stop  there,  but  would  climb  over 
the  plateaus  and  peaks  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  come  back 
to  you  at  the  Mississippi  River,  making  a  solid  belt  of  corn- 
wagons  clear  round  the  world.  But  stop!  we  have  not  yet 
loaded  all  of  the  corn  crop  of  these  seven  States.  The  pile 
seems  almost  as  big  as  when  we  began.  There  are  five  times  as 
much  corn  left  as  that  we  have  put  on  the  wagons,  and  we  should 

1  James,  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  328. 

2  Pp.  161-163. 


APPERCEPTION  551 

have  to  make  six  such  lines  around  the  world  before  we  could 
load  a  single  year's  crop  of  this  great  corn  patch.  It  would  take 
so  many  wagons,  indeed,  that  if  they  were  stretched  out  in  one 
single  file,  the  first  wagon  would  be  more  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  miles  away  before  the  last  wagon  was  loaded. 
And  yet  these  seven  States  contain  only  about  one-half  of  the 
corn  we  produce,  and  you  must  multiply  the  number  of  wagons 
by  two  if  you  wish  to  know  how  many  would  be  needed  to  carry 
one  year's  corn  crop  of  the  whole  United  States." 

Apperception  and  Arrangement  of  Curriculum. — The  applica- 
tion of  knowledge  is  peculiarly  dependent  upon  the  arrangement 
of  the  course  of  study.  The  course  should  be  so  arranged  that 
each  topic  in  each  subject  may  be  naturally  retraced — of  course, 
from  a  different  point  of  view.  This  procedure,  termed  the 
spiral  plan,  is  largely  Observed  in  the  German  schools.  They 
aim  to  have  every  subject  before  the  mind  of  the  pupil  for  a  great 
many  years.  Instead  of  taking  algebra,  for  example,  for  a  year 
and  finishing  it,  the  subject  is  begun  at  about  eleven  years  of  age 
and  carried  until  eighteen  or  twenty.  The  same  is  true  of 
geometry.  Trigonometry  is  begun  at  about  fourteen  and  carried 
four  or  five  years.  History  is  pursued  two  hours  a  week  for  six 
or  eight  years  instead  of  five  hours  a  week  for  a  couple  of  years. 
From  personal  inspection  I  know  that  the  final  resultant  is  much 
better  than  in  our  schools.  By  the  German  plan  pupils  are 
enabled  to  begin  the  elementary  consideration  of  so-called  sec- 
ondary school  subjects  at  an  early  age,  reserving  the  more  diffi- 
cult portions  until  their  minds  are  ready  to  grasp  them.  Easy 
algebraic  processes  are  taken  before  difficult  arithmetical  prob- 
lems; the  introduction  to  geometry  is  made  early  and  its  results 
utilized  in  later  arithmetical  problems.  Logarithms  are  studied 
at  thirteen  and  the  tables  used  constantly.  Thus  a  habit  is 
formed  and  the  process  remembered  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
serviceable.  When  the  study  of  logarithms  and  trigonometry  is 
deferred  until  the  college  course  the  knowledge  of  them  goes 
into  disuse  soon  after  acquirement.  I  know  this  to  be  true 
from  a  wide  census  taken  in  college  classes. 


552  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Contrary  to  some  unfounded  suppositions,  interest  is  not  sac- 
rificed by  the  spiral  plan.  Each  time  that  ground  is  recrossed 
it  is  with  a  different  purpose.  For  example,  in  elementary  his- 
tory the  facts  should  be  studied  for  their  interest  as  facts.  Later 
the  same  facts  should  be  studied  with  a  view  to  securing  a  more 
orderly  sequence,  and  later  from  the  institutional  or  philosoph- 
ical point  of  view.  In  literature  the  reading  of  all  of  Dickens's 
works  simply  because  they  fascinate  is  a  very  profitable  occupa- 
tion, but  the  attitude  is  entirely  different  from  that  manifested 
in  literary  criticism.  The  former  consideration  should  be  the 
antecedent  of  the  latter. 

Apperception  and  Correlation. — Careful  correlation  of  work  in 
the  curriculum  is  a  great  means  of  economy  and  an  aid  to  the 
clearer  understanding  of  each  of  the  subjects.  It  is  quite  usual 
for  subjects  to  be  so  taught  that  each  one  appears  entirely  unre- 
lated to  all  the  others.  Herbart  wrote:  " I  cannot  refrain  from 
wondering  what  sort  of  a  process  is  being  worked  out  in  the 
heads  of  schoolboys  who,  in  a  single  forenoon,  are  driven  through 
a  series  of  heterogeneous  lessons,  each  one  of  which,  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  at  the  regular  tap  of  the  bell,  is  repeated  and  con- 
tinued. Is  it  expected  that  these  boys  will  bring  into  relation 
with  one  another  and  with  the  thoughts  of  the  playground  the 
different  threads  of  thought  there  spun?  There  are  educators 
and  teachers  who,  with  marvellous  confidence,  presuppose  just 
this,  and  in  consequence  trouble  themselves  no  further." 

While  the  greatest  value  of  Latin  to  the  ordinary  student 
should  be  its  enrichment  of  the  number  and  content  of  English 
words,  yet  from  wide  observation  I  know  that  many  pupils  get 
little  appreciation  of  its  relation  to  English.  This  is  especially 
true  where  the  Roman  pronunciation  is  followed.  Where  gram- 
mar and  ability  to  translate  are  the  centre  and  circumference  of 
Latin  teaching,  the  value  for  English  in  the  ordinary  high-school 
course  is  relatively  very  small.  Geography  and  history  are  sel- 
dom correlated  as  they  should  be.  English  is  too  often  relegated 
to  a  special  formal  exercise  and  entirely  neglected  in  all  other 
subjects.  While  it  should  be  the  chief  subject  for  many  years, 


APPERCEPTION  553 

two-thirds  of  the  time  given  to  it  should  be  in  connection  with 
other  subjects.  Practically  every  composition  should  grow  natu- 
rally out  of  the  work  in  history,  geography,  reading,  science, 
etc.  There  is  seldom  necessity  for  a  "class  in  composition," 
unless  it  may  be  for  criticism  of  the  work  submitted  in  connec- 
tion with  other  subjects.  Furthermore,  all  language  forms 
learned  in  the  separate  language  class  must  be  re-enforced  and 
drilled  upon  in  all  the  other  classes.  It  is  absurd  to  expect  that 
the  language  class  can  cure  all  the  ills  of  incorrect  speech  if  the 
faults  are  passed  over  unnoticed  in  the  other  work. 

In  the  presentation  of  successive  topics  in  a  subject  and  in  the 
several  subjects  in  the  curriculum  constant  effort  should  be  made 
to  have  each  new  thing  related  to  other  acquisitions.  It  is  only 
in  this  way  that  knowledge  becomes  permanent  and  vital.  There 
is  no  necessity  for  hunting  a  subject  which  is  to  become  a  "cen- 
tre of  correlation."  Any  idea  which  is  worth  while  to  acquire 
should  become  a  centre  of  correlation.  The  mind  itself  is  the 
true  centre  of  correlation.  The  teacher  should  study  the  learn- 
er's mind  to  know  what  is  there  and  then  seek  to  relate  all  new 
additions  to  the  pre-existing  complex.  One  great  objection 
against  specialists  in  elementary  and  high  schools  is  that  each 
one  is  ignorant  of  all  that  the  others  do.  This  need  not  be  so. 

In  attempting  to  correlate  the  child's  experiences  the  home 
activities  should  not  be  overlooked.  The  bulk  of  the  child's  best 
and  most  significant  experiences  are  secured  at  home.  Most  of 
his  concrete  ideas  of  geography,  plant  and  animal  life,  geological 
phenomena,  physical,  chemical,  and  meteorological  laws,  have 
been  gained  outside  the  school.  The  formal  study  of  these 
subjects  should  draw  heavily  upon  those  experiences,  both  for 
the  purpose  of  enlarging  those  ideas  and  giving  them  significance 
and  for  the  purpose  of  using  them  in  the  acquisition  of  the  new. 
"The  branches  of  learning  taught  to  the  child  by  the  school- 
master are  necessarily  dry  and  juiceless  if  they  are  not  thus 
brought  into  relation  with  the  child's  world  of  experience. 
Almost  all  of  the  school  reforms  that  have  been  proposed  in  the 
past  one  hundred  years  have  moved  in  this  line.  The  effort  to 


554  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

seize  upon  the  child's  interest  and  make  it  the  agency  for  prog- 
ress has  formed  the  essential  feature  in  each."  * 

Concrete  ideas  of  conduct  and  morality  are  almost  wholly 
extra-school  acquisitions.  Hence  the  importance  of  interpreting 
these  and  giving  the  best  ideals  to  be  carried  in  turn  into  the 
life  outside  the  school-room.  Were  the  great  object-lessons  in 
conduct  as  exemplified  in  the  great  world  about  the  child  what 
they  should  be,  there  would  be  little  difficulty  in  impressing  the 
highest  ideals  on  children.  The  entire  process  of  education 
should  be  so  interwoven  that  each  part  derives  new  meaning 
from  all  the  others.  Furthermore  all  formal  processes  of  edu- 
cation should  be  so  ultimately  related  to  life  and  character  that 
each  factor  may  contribute  to  the  best  development  of  the  ideal 
character.  No  item  should  enter  into  education  which  cannot 
find  intimate  relation  with  the  life  and  character  of  the  particu- 
lar individual.  The  more  intimately  the  learner  can  feel  the 
educative  processes  entering  into  and  contributing  to  his  interest 
the  more  educative  the  processes  are. 

Not  only  is  proper  correlation  necessary  if  mental  economy  is 
to  be  secured,  but  it  has  become  a  practical  necessity  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  present-day  curricula.  With  the  enlarged  range 
of  human  activities  there  has  arisen  a  great  multiplication  of 
subjects,  all  of  which  have  a  legitimate  claim  for  a  place  in  the 
school-room.  If  proper  correlation  of  subjects  is  made  and 
unnecessary  details  which  bear  no  relation  to  present-day  life 
interests  are  omitted  there  need  be  no  complaint  about  the  over- 
loading of  school  courses.  The  great  trouble  has  been  that  it 
has  been  thought  that  all  the  new  subjects  must  be  introduced 
and  at  the  same  time  all  the  old  ones  superstitiously  retained. 
In  arithmetic,  for  example,  items  of  knowledge  which  were  of 
practical  value  two  hundred  years  ago  in  the  business  methods 
of  the  time  are  still  required  of  boys  in  school.  English  gram- 
mar is  largely  made  up  of  relics  of  Latin  grammar,  useful  enough 
in  connection  with  Latin,  but  of  no  earthly  use  in  learning  prac- 
tical English.  Geography  is  frequently  a  pedagogical  sausage 

1  W.  T.  Harris,  Preface  to  Uncle  Robert's  Geography. 


APPERCEPTION  555 

composed  of  scraps  of  useless  information  of  uncertain  relia- 
bility. With  proper  correlation  and  elimination  there  will  be 
sufficient  room  for  every  desirable  subject  and  adequate  time 
for  its  proper  acquisition  and  assimilation.1 

Reviews. — Some  writers  advise  calling  up  as  many  related 
ideas  as  possible,  but  this  would  lead  to  endless  detail  and  repeti- 
tion. Only  those  ideas  which  are  requisite  to  a  full  and  ready 
comprehension  of  the  new  ideas  are  necessary  or  desirable. 
For  example,  in  teaching  addition  of  compound  numbers  the 
only  processes  which  need  conscious  recall  are  those  related  to 
the  decimal  notation.  The  whole  subject  of  integral  addition, 
subtraction,  division,  etc.,  might  be  called  up,  but  it  would  only 
lead  away  from  the  principle  in  hand.  Reviews  of  the  right 
sort  are  made  imperative  if  the  laws  of  apperception  are  heeded. 
The  real  review  is  more  than  repetition.  Simple  repetition  is 
needed,  of  course,  in  purely  mechanical  processes  like  writing, 
spelling,  dancing,  gaining  skill  in  multiplying,  and  adding.  But 
in  all  exercises  requiring  serious  thought  the  review  should  be 
a  re-view,  a  re-seeing  from  a  different  stand-point.  Conducted 
in  this  way  new  views  are  gained,  and  no  review  is  worthy 
the  name  that  does  not  give  new  insight  and  new  associa- 
tions. Reviews  thus  enlarge  concepts  and  add  to  the  com- 
prehension of  the  topic.  The  review  should  be  the  period  of 
most  rapid  advance  as  well  as  the  time  of  most  conscious  illu- 
mination/ 

As  was  shown  in  discussing  memory,  the  best  method  of  insur- 
ing permanence  of  mental  possessions  is  to  bind  them  together 
with  as  many  bonds  of  association  as  possible.  The  greater  the 
number  of  associations  the  more  opportunities  for  grasping  new 
relations.  The  Herbartians  have  set  forth  the  necessity  of  recog- 
nizing five  fundamental  steps  in  the  acquisition  and  assimilation 
of  all  knowledge.  They  are  (i)  preparation,  (2)  presentation, 
(3)  assimilation,  (4)  generalization,  (5)  application.  Without 
assuming  a  formal  recognition  of  these  in  every  lesson,  we  must 

1  For  an  excellent  article  upon  desirable  elimination,  see  F.  M.  McMurry, 
Educational  Review,  27  :  478-493  (1904). 


556  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

recognize  them  as  the  general  natural  mental  movements  in  the 
acquisition  of  every  lesson  unit. 

This  preparation  consists  in  part  in  recalling  to  the  mind  those 
facts  and  principles  which  are  so  related  to  the  new  material  as 
to  be  absolutely  indispensable  to  its  ready  comprehension  and 
assimilation.  Oftentimes  new  processes  are  stumbled  over  in  a 
blind  way  when  a  little  attention  to  reviewing  previously-learned 
related  ideas  would  make  the  whole  matter  a  delight.  This  is 
especially  true  in  mathematics  where  each  step  depends  so  abso- 
lutely upon  preceding  processes.  In  the  transformation  of  trigo- 
nometric equations  how  necessary  that  the  whole  previous  sub- 
structure flash  into  the  mind  in  order  to  proceed  intelligently. 
The  same  is  true  in  studying  a  foreign  language.  Not  only 
should  the  prerequisite  facts  and  principles  be  comprehended, 
but  they  should  be  so  mastered  that  they  are  instantly  applicable 
in  new  relations.  Weeks  of  precious  time  are  wasted  every 
year  in  most  schools  because  fundamental  processes  of  thought 
and  expression  have  not  become  convertible  into  elements  of 
new  processes.  The  multiplication  table,  the  addition  table,  the 
subtraction  table,  various  fractional  equivalences,  the  spelling 
of  words,  the  mechanics  of  reading,  etc.,  must  be  so  learned  that 
the  results  are  always  available.  The  teacher  who  tells  a  child 
to  think  hard  when  he  is  asked  to  give  the  answers  to  such  ex- 
pressions as  7  X  9,  8  +  7,  63  -7-  7,  etc.,  is  not  doing  good  teach- 
ing. The  child  must  not  stop  to  think.  The  process  musjt  have 
become  automatic.  Likewise  the  meanings  of  words  repre- 
senting fundamental  concepts  must  be  made  not  only  compre- 
hensible but  usable. 

Apperception  vs.  Formal  Discipline.— It  is  frequently  said  that 
it  makes  little  difference  what  a  pupil  studies  so  long  as  he  does 
steady,  hard  work.  The  discipline  coming  from  the  work  is  the 
all-important  thing.  The  fact  of  the  apperceptive  growth  of  the 
mind  entirely  disproves  this.  McMurry  has  made  a  most  im- 
portant observation  with  reference  to  the  value  of  previous 
knowledge  and  against  the  disciplinary  theory  of  study.1  He 

1  Elements  of  General  Method,  p.  280, 


APPERCEPTION  557 

observes  that  "If  knowledge  once  acquired  is  so  valuable,  we 
are,  first  of  all,  urged  to  make  the  acquisition  permanent. 
Thorough  mastery  and  frequent  reviews  are  necessary  to  make 
knowledge  stick.  Careless  and  superficial  study  is  injurious. 
It  is  sometimes  carelessly  remarked  by  those  who  are  supposed 
to  be  wise  in  educational  doctrine,  that  it  makes  no  difference 
how  much  we  forget,  if  we  only  have  proper  drill  and  training  to 
study.  But  viewed  in  the  light  of  apperception,  acquired  knowl- 
edge should  be  retained  and  used,  for  it  unlocks  the  door  to  more 
knowledge.  Thorough  mastery  and  retention  of  the  elements  of 
knowledge  in  the  different  branches  is  the  only  solid  road  to 
progress.  In  this  connection  we  can  see  the  importance  of  learn- 
ing only  what  is  worth  remembering,  what  will  prove  a  valuable 
treasure  in  future  study.  In  the  selection  of  materials  for  school 
studies,  therefore,  we  must  keep  in  mind  knowledge  which,  as 
Comenius  says,  is  of  solid  utility.  Knowledge  which  is  thus 
useful  is  in  itself  a  strong  element  of  power,  because  it  is  a  direct 
means  of  interpreting  and  mastering  the  world.  Much  of  the 
knowledge  gained  in  schools  for  mere  disciplinary  purposes  is 
not,  in  the  apperceptive  sense,  a  source  of  power.  It  may  be, 
indeed,  mere  pedantry  and  pretence,  and  even  self-deception. 
The  doctrine  of  apperception  has  laid  the  axe  to  the  root  of  that 
ancient  tree  known  as  pure  formal  discipline." 

Apperception  and  Sympathy. — The  main  reason  why  people 
are  so  unsympathetic  with  each  other  is  that  they  do  not  under- 
stand each  other's  point  of  view.  It  is  a  difficult  thing  to  put 
ourselves  in  the  other  fellow's  place  and  to  view  the  world  from 
his  elevation  and  with  his  glasses.  Whenever  we  are  asked  to 
consider  a  question  we  at  once  mount  our  own  observatory  and 
turn  our  own  glasses  upon  it.  The  labor  question  involving 
strikes  and  lockouts  is  very  largely  one  of  differences  in  under- 
standing the  problem  of  the  other  party  concerned.  Religious 
and  political  dissensions  and  intolerance  are  the  result  of  bias 
produced  by  life-long  instruction  in  some  particular  dogma. 
Could  extended  vision  be  afforded  to  the  contending  parties  the 
differences  would  usually  disappear. 


558  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

It  is  an  important  function  of  education  to  establish  a  bond 
of  sympathy  between  the  child  and  the  rest  of  the  world.  This 
it  can  accomplish  only  by  putting  the  child  in  touch  with  the 
world.  He  must  not  only  know  the  world  of  to-day,  but  he 
must  also  know  it  historically.  This  does  not  imply  political 
history  alone,  but  all  that  may  be  included  in  the  development 
of  civilization.  Under  modern  urban  conditions  the  child  is  apt 
to  grow  up  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  fundamentals  of 
industrial  and  commercial  life.  By  this  I  mean  that  he  sees 
practically  nothing  of  raw  materials  and  takes  no  part  in  the 
elemental  processes  of  production,  manufacturing,  and  distribu- 
tion. He  has  knowledge  of  finished  products  only.  From  the 
time  he  rises  in  the  morning  until  he  is  locked  in  slumber  every- 
thing is  furnished  him  "ready  made."  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
such  a  one  on  becoming  an  employer  later  in  life  has  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  man  who  ploughs  the  soil,  the  man  who  stokes 
the  furnace,  or  the  man  who  digs  the  coal  from  the  bowels  of 
the  earth? 

One  of  the  great  virtues  in  the  education  of  earlier  days  lay 
in  what  was  gained  outside  the  school  in  the  every-day  duties 
of  the  farm  and  the  household.  All  the  various  industrial  and 
social  occupations  centred  about  the  household  life.  Practi- 
cally every  article  for  food,  clothing,  and  building  was  a  home 
product.  Animals  grown  on  the  farm  or  secured  in  the  hunt, 
vegetables  from  the  garden,  cereals  from  the  fields,  berries  from 
the  wood,  sugar  from  the  maple-tree,  furnished  practically  the 
entire  supply  of  food.  These  were  all  prepared  by  members  of 
the  household.  There  were  no  cold-storage  plants  and  refrig- 
erator cars  securing  for  every  day  in  the  year  the  freshest  prod- 
ucts of  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth.  Clothing  was  largely 
of  home  manufacture.  The  boys  learned  to  shear  the  sheep 
which  they  raised,  they  carded  the  wool,  and  their  sisters  were 
adepts  in  spinning,  weaving,  and  fashioning  it  into  garments. 
Even  the  shoes  they  wore  were  frequently  home-made  from  the 
hides  which  they  tanned  when  they  slaughtered  the  animals  for 
the  winter's  supply  of  beef.  To  illuminate  their  houses,  instead 


APPERCEPTION  559 

of  pressing  a  button,  they  made  the  tallow-dip  from  the  animal 
fat  which  they  had  tried  out  and  with  wicks  of  their  own  manu- 
facture. They  carried  out  the  processes  of  manufacture  of 
dwellings,  buildings,  implements,  vehicles,  and  furniture  from 
the  felling  of  the  forest  trees  and  sawing  of  the  lumber,  to  the 
fine  cabinet  and  joinery  work  and  painting.  Even  the  iron  and 
steel  work  was  frequently  done  by  means  of  the  farm  black- 
smith shop.  Such  work  as  could  not  be  accomplished  on  the 
farm  was  made  possible  in  the  village  shop  or  mill  which  was 
never  closed  for  fear  of  revealing  trade  secrets. 

Dr.  Dewey  says1  that  "in  all  this  there  was  continual  train- 
ing of  observation,  of  ingenuity,  constructive  imagination,  of 
logical  thought,  and  of  the  sense  of  reality  acquired  through 
first-hand  contact  with  actualities.  The  educative  forces  of  the 
domestic  spinning  and  weaving,  of  the  saw-mill,  the  grist-mill, 
the  cooper-shop,  and  the  blacksmith  forge  were  continuously 
operative."  Through  this  definite  knowledge  of  a  wide  range 
of  activities  largely  gained  by  participation  in  them  a  wholesome 
sympathy  for  those  engaged  in  all  sorts  of  labor  was  engendered. 
Those  boys  and  girls  gained  a  thorough  appreciation  of  the 
efforts  that  must  be  put  forth  to  master  environment  and  cause 
it  to  minister  to  human  needs.  They  developed  an  appreciation 
of  the  labor  that  must  ever  be  the  price  of  civilization.  In  our 
specialized  society  so  many  of  the  fundamental  processes  of 
producing  and  transforming  the  raw  materials  are  hidden  from 
the  view  of  the  modern,  especially  the  city,  youth  that  they  nat- 
urally infer  that  all  they  ever  need  to  do  is  to  sit  idly  by,  press 
a  button,  and  order  whatever  takes  their  fancy.  They  gain  no 
adequate  idea  of  duty  or  responsibility,  and  can  have  no  real 
appreciation  of  historical  forces.  The  best  history  lesson  a  boy 
could  possibly  have  would  be  to  plough  for  a  season  in  a  stumpy, 
stony  field.  Educators  are  coming  to  realize  the  educational  im- 
portance of  participation  in  the  handicrafts  and  household  arts. 
and  they  are  introducing  manual  training  and  domestic  science 
to  help  offset  some  of  the  disadvantages  of  civilization.  It  will 

1  The  School  and  Society,  p.  24. 


560  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

mean  much  if  we  can  only  stem  the  tide  now  going  cityward  and 
direct  it  backward  toward  the  simpler  rural  life  where  children 
and  youth  can  advantageously  spend  more  of  their  days. 

Apperception  Suggests  Teacher's  Preparation. — A  solemn  duty 
is  incumbent  upon  every  teacher  to  make  the  most  careful  and 
minute  preparation  for  each  day's  teaching.  What  the  pupil 
has  as  capital  to  build  upon  must  be  determined.  Likewise  just 
what  is  to  be  taught  must  be  minutely  planned.  To  have  once 
or  even  many  times  made  preparation  for  former  classes  is  not 
sufficient.  The  former  preparation  should,  of  course,  render  it 
unnecessary  to  spend  as  much  time  in  getting  ready.  Frequently 
a  given  day's  lesson  is  a  failure,  not  because  of  lack  of  general 
preparation,  but  because  the  proper  illustrations,  apparatus, 
and  devices  were  lacking  or  were  not  selected  for  that  class,  and 
for  that  day.  Knowledge  must,  of  course,  be  always  on  tap, 
but  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  learn  the  gauge  of  the  particu- 
lar glasses  to  be  filled.  Knowledge  imparted  must  ever  be  fresh, 
interesting,  and  presented  as  if  the  teacher  were  wholly  absorbed 
in  it  himself.  It  must  be  genuinely  fascinating  to  the  teacher 
if  he  is  to  incite  contagious  zealousness.  This  attitude  can  only 
be  evidenced  by  the  teacher  if  he  approaches  the  subject  as  a 
learner.  There  is  nothing  that  will  so  stimulate  pupils  to  be- 
come scholarly  as  to  be  in  the  continuous  companionship  of 
teachers  who  are  growing  in  scholarship.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  nothing  that  will  kill  out  scholarly  ambitions  in  young 
minds  so  much  as  to  be  with  teachers  who  are  mere  echoists. 
"The  unskilled  teacher  forces  instruction  upon  the  child  and  is 
angry  or  disheartened  when  he  finds  no  intelligent  response, 
although  he  never  considered  the  previous  question,  whether  the 
child  already  possesses  the  mental  organ  for  apprehending  the 
facts  or  ideas  which  are  thrust  upon  him.  The  main  principle 
which  psychology  lends  to  the  theory  of  education  as  its  starting- 
point  is  the  need  that  all  communication  of  new  knowledge 
should  be  a  development  of  previous  knowledge.  If  the  apper- 
ceptive  system  necessary  for  incorporating  a  new  fact  or  idea 
does  not  exist,  it  must  first  be  evolved  before  teaching  can  be 


APPERCEPTION  561 

successful.  It  would  seem  that  Socrates  has  the  credit  of  being 
the  first  to  insist  on  this  point."  l 

Breadth  and  accuracy  of  scholarship  besides  professional  train- 
ing are  absolutely  essential  to  success.  Even  the  "born  teacher" 
must  secure  these  or  frequently  be  indictable  for  gross  malad- 
ministration in  office.  It  is  a  grand  endowment  to  possess  those 
qualities  we  ascribe  to  the  born  teacher — vivacity,  quick  insight, 
geniality,  patience,  justice,  attractive  personality,  transparent 
honesty  and  uprightness,  leadership,  and  all  the  others  that  could 
be  mentioned;  but  without  scholarship  and  professional  training 
even  the  one  superlatively  blessed  is  unprepared  for  the  high 
office  of  teacher — the  grandiloquent  platform  orator  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding.  Even  with  ample  scholarship  added,  a 
great  handicap  remains  and  unpardonable  blunders  are  inevi- 
table unless  the  teacher  begins  under  the  wisest  supervision. 
The  trained  teacher  knows  what  instruction  has  preceded  in  the 
courses  and  what  is  to  follow;  he  recognizes  the  varying  stages 
of  mental  development  and  what  will  best  minister  to  them; 
he  is  conversant  with  other  subjects  than  his  own,  has  studied 
out  their  relationships  and  thereby  has  gained  perspective; 
he  knows  the  laws  for  promoting  the  best  mental  action,  and 
considers  the  demands  which  society  will  place  upon  the 
child. 

Superintendent  Cooley,  of  Chicago,  said:  "I  think  that  the 
lower  grade  in  the  high  school  needs  teachers  who  can  teach  the 
pupils  as  well  as  the  subjects.  .  .  .  More  teachers  are  trying  to 
bring  university  methods  into  the  high  school  than  there  are 
making  such  mistakes  in  the  grades  below."  Superintendent 
Soldan,  of  St.  Louis,  said  in  the  same  discussion:  "The  very 
first  step  in  the  readjustment  of  the  high  school  is  to  show  at  least 
one  book  by  high-school  teachers  that  embodies  the  high-school 
method.  It  is  strange  that  the  books  for  the  common-school 
teachers  are  without  equivalents  in  the  high  schools.  Let  them 
follow  the  example  of  the  common-school  teachers  in  mastering 
the  subjects  and  also  in  mastering  the  pedagogics  of  the  subjects. 

'Stout,  Analytic  Psychology,  II,  p.  137. 


562  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

.  .  .  The  pupils  enter  the  high  school  as  children.  Their  work 
in  the  first  year,  and  often  in  the  second  year,  is  done  after  the 
ways  of  children,  but  by  the  time  they  leave  the  high  schools 
they  are  adults  in  many  respects.  That  important  transition 
from  childhood  to  adolescence  has  not  been  considered,  so  far  as 
I  know,  by  any  high-school  teacher.  The  course  of  study  should 
l)e  adjusted  according  to  the  principles  of  wise  pedagogics.  .  .  . 
The  common-school  teacher  has  gone  beyond  the  mere  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  he  is  to  teach ;  he  has  gone  to  the  thoughtful 
consideration  of  how  these  subjects  should  be  taught  to  have 
the  fullest  educational  influence  over  the  children  under  his 
control."  1 

The  whole  work  of  the  trained  teacher  contributes  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  pupil  through  utilizing  all  the  means  and 
instruments  available.  While  the  untrained  teacher  may  by 
happy  fortune  contribute  to  one  phase  of  development  by  using 
limited  means,  his  efforts  are  liable  to  miscarry  entirely  because 
of  untimeliness  or  bad  methods,  or  he  may  warp  the  mind  be- 
cause of  undue  emphasis  of  the  subject  which  he  represents. 
Superintendent  Cooley  has  said  that  the  first-year  class  in  the 
high  school  is  the  worst  taught  class  in  the  whole  system  of 
schools.  This,  he  says,  is  true  because  of  the  inexperience  of 
the  teachers,  who  are  largely  just  out  of  college.  They  teach 
as  they  have  been  taught  by  methods  well  enough  adapted  to 
colleges,  but  entirely  out  of  place  in  the  high  school.  They 
exalt  the  subject  and  lose  sight  of  the  learners.  They  magnify 
their  particular  subject  all  out  of  proportion  to  its  rights.  It  is 
well  known  that  in  colleges,  and  in  high  schools  where  the  depart- 
ment system  prevails,  each  instructor  is  apt  to  assign  enough  to 
occupy  the  whole  time  of  the  student.  This  is  not  an  indictment 
of  the  college,  but  of  the  system  which  permits  the  employment 
of  teachers  without  professional  training.  But  most  important 
of  all,  how  can  we  expect  immature,  untrained  teachers  to  assist 
much  in  developing  in  pupils  a  keen  sense  of  duty  and  responsi- 
bility toward  society  when  the  teachers  have  had  such  limited 

1  Proc.  N.  E.  A.,  1903,  p.  184. 


APPERCEPTION  563 

contact  with  it  themselves?  The  teachers  should  have  become 
broad-minded  through  varied  contact  with  society  and  should 
be  keenly  alive  to  the  best  means  of  fostering  the  highest  ideals 
in  the  youth. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
MOTOR  EXPRESSION  IN  RELATION  TO  EDUCATION 

Expression  an  Index  to  Mind. — The  only  means  we  have  of 
studying  the  mind  of  another  is  through  his  various  expressions. 
Mind  discloses  itself  to  others  only  by  expression  as  in  talking, 
writing,  drawing,  painting,  constructing  machines  or  controlling 
them,  etc.  Efficiency  of  mind  is  judged  wholly  by  the  outward 
expression  revealed  to  the  view  of  the  world.  A  student's 
knowledge  of  mathematics  or  psychology  must  be  judged  by 
what  he  says  or  writes;  one's  knowledge  of  art  by  what  he  can 
produce.  We  do  not  really  know  whether  another  can  sing  or 
play  the  piano  until  he  manifests  it  in  expression.  A  poetic 
soul  is  unknown  until  it  bursts  into  song;  an  author's  ability  to 
write,  may  properly  be  challenged  until  he  gives  an  actual 
demonstration.  Similarly  an  engineer  must  exhibit  his  skill, 
an  architect  his  plan,  a  general  his  generalship,  a  statesman  his 
statecraft,  in  some  objective  results.  In  fact,  we  know  nothing 
of  the  perceptions,  memories,  emotions,  reasonings,  choosings, 
willings,  hopes,  joys,  and  sorrows,  of  others  except  as  they  give 
expression  to  them  through  some  muscular  activity.  Another 
may  love  us  ever  so  tenderly  or  hate  us  ever  so  bitterly,  but  unless 
we  detect  some  of  his  outward  expressions  of  it  we  are  entirely 
oblivious  of  the  fact.  To  illustrate,  a  man  is  angry.  How  do 
others  know  it?  Solely  by  his  expression.  He  may  clench  his 
fist,  knit  his  brows,  gnash  his  teeth,  raise  his  arm  to  strike,  utter 
an  oath  in  a  major  key,  if  he  believes  himself  stronger  than  his 
foe;  if  inferior  he  may  whisper  in  impotent  rage  and  skulk  away 
because  incapable  of  defence  or  retaliation.  Another  angry 
man  might  express  himself  in  a  more  indirect,  but  not  less 
effective  manner  by  calling  the  police,  waylaying  his  enemy, 

S64 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  565 

going  to  war,  writing  articles  of  denunciation  which  would  bring 
social  reprobation  upon  his  enemy,  or  waging  a  war  of  ballots 
which  would  express  indignation  and  tend  to  secure  retribution 
and  reform.  The  enemy  might  be  an  individual  or  a  violation 
of  principle.  Again,  consider  the  various  manifestations  of  fear. 
The  child  may  run  with  breathless  haste,  eyes  dilated,  tears 
streaming,  heart  palpitating,  face  flushed,  or  it  may  be  blanched 
and  palsied.  A  mother  immersed  in  grief  over  the  loss  of  her 
loved  little  ones  may  be  hysterical,  or  speak  with  voice  trem- 
bling, quivering  lips,  have  a  pallid  countenance,  and  be  depressed 
almost  to  complete  paralysis.  In  any  case,  the  emotions  are 
expressed  in  some  form  of  action,  sometimes  decidedly  external; 
in  others  more  internal,  repressed,  and  perhaps  much  diffused, 
but  the  only  means  we  have  of  understanding  them  is  through 
some  form  of  motor  expression. 

Dr.  Warner,  a  noted  London  physician,  has  written  an  entire 
volume  on  Physical  Expression,  which  is  of  exceeding  interest. 
The  following  quotation  is  to  the  point  in  connection  with  the 
foregoing  thesis:  "In  the  adult  the  objective  criteria  of  mind 
are  modes  of  expression]  the  expressions  of  the  emotions,  feel- 
ings, passions,  thoughts  are  indications  of  the  mind;  and  all 
these  modes  of  expression  have  been  shown  to  be  produced  by 
direct  action  of  the  nervous  system.  It  is,  then,  admitted  that 
conditions  of  the  mind  are  directly  expressed  by  nerve-muscular 
signs.  This  implies  that  some  material,  physical  change  occurs 
along  with  'mentation,'  which  material  change  is  expressed  in 
the  muscles  of  the  body.  It  is  this  inherent  physical  change, 
thus  directly  expressed,  which  the  physiologist  investigates  in 
his  studies  of  mind."  1 

James  says:2  "The  brain,  so  far  as  we  understand  it,  is  given 
us  for  practical  behavior.  Every  current  that  runs  into  it  from 
skin  or  eye  or  ear  runs  out  again  into  muscles,  glands,  or  viscera, 
and  helps  to  adapt  the  animal  to  the  environment  from  which  the 
current  came.  It  therefore  generalizes  and  simplifies  our  view 
to  treat  the  brain  life  and  the  mental  life  as  having  one  funda- 

1  Physical  Expression,  p.  252.  5  Talks  to  Teachers,  p.  26. 


566  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

mental  kind  of  purpose."  He  says  that  even  the  "inessential, 
'unpractical'  activities  are  themselves  far  more  connected  with 
our  behavior  and  our  adaptation  to  the  environment  than  at 
first  sight  might  appear.  No  truth,  however  abstract,  is  ever 
perceived,  that  will  not  probably  at  some  time  influence  our 
earthly  action.  You  must  remember  that,  when  I  talk  of  action 
here,  I  mean  action  in  the  widest  sense.  I  mean  speech,  I  mean 
writing,  I  mean  yeses  and  noes,  and  tendencies  'from'  things 
and  tendencies  'toward'  things,  and  emotional  determinations; 
and  I  mean  them  in  the  future  as  well  as  in  the  immediate 
present.  As  I  talk  here,  and  you  listen,  it  might  seem  as  if  no 
action  followed.  You  might  call  it  a  purely  theoretic  process, 
with  no  practical  result.  But  it  must  have  a  practical  result. 
It  cannot  take  place  at  all  and  leave  your  conduct  unaffected. 
If  not  to-day,  then  on  some  far  future  day,  you  will  answer  some 
question  differently  by  reason  of  what  you  are  thinking  now. 
Some  of  you  will  be  led  by  my  words  into  new  veins  of  inquiry, 
into  reading  special  books.  These  will  develop  your  opinion, 
whether  for  or  against.  That  opinion  will  in  turn  be  expressed, 
will  receive  criticism  from  others  in  your  environment,  and  will 
affect  your  standing  in  their  eyes.  We  cannot  escape  our 
destiny,  which  is  practical;  and  even  our  most  theoretic  faculties 
contribute  to  its  working  out." 

Motor  Activity  in  Relation  to  Health  or  Disease. — An  abun- 
dance of  well-controlled  movements,  as  exhibited  in  play  or 
interesting  work,  are  a  sure  sign  of  healthfulness — physical  and 
mental.  On  the  other  hand  an  excess  of  unco-ordinated  move- 
ments is  a  sure  symptom  of  disease.  We  should  always  be  sus- 
picious of  twitchings  of  the  eye  or  facial  muscles,  unsteadiness 
of  the  body,  head,  hand,  or  fingers,  or  of  stammering  and  stutter- 
ing. Likewise  we  should  study  closely  the  child  who  drums 
incessantly  with  the  fingers  or  the  feet,  who  is  restless,  constantly 
changing  position  to  no  purpose,  rolling  the  eyeballs,  or  droop- 
ing the  head;  whose  arms  hang  limp  by  the  side,  who  drags 
his  feet  and  stumbles;  who  cannot  throw  a  ball,  run,  trundle  a 
hoop,  etc.  Such  a  child  is  either  fatigued,  has  not  slept  suffi- 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  567 

ciently,  or  is  ill-nourished.  Children  are  often  excitable,  pas- 
sionate, melancholy,  and  fretful.  During  sleep  such  children 
are  seldom  in  repose;  they  grind  the  teeth,  are  troubled  by 
incessant  twitching  of  the  muscles,  are  disturbed  by  dreams, 
frequently  have  night-terrors,  and  sometimes  are  troubled  with 
somnambulism.  A  child  in  perfect  health  is  also  full  of  move- 
ment, but  the  actions  are  controlled.  He  runs  about  from  dawn 
till  dark,  plays,  capers,  chatters,  laughs,  and  is  constantly  giving 
natural  expression  to  states  of  mind  and  body.  A  child  who  is 
ill  or  excessively  fatigued  does  not  frisk  about,  ceases  play,  mopes 
or  curls  up  in  a  corner  and  talks  little,  laughs  less,  or  is  quiet 
until  normal  conditions  are  restored.  A  normal,  healthy  child 
is  not  quiet  a  single  moment  of  his  waking  life.  Some  people 
call  children  lazy,  but  it  is  a  false  indictment.  I  doubt  if  a  nor- 
mal child  has  a  lazy  fibre  in  his  being.  Sometimes  children  do 
not  respond  in  directions  which  we  mark  out  for  them,  but  this 
may  be  because  of  excess  of  activity  in  more  enticing  directions. 
Inhibition. — Inhibition  is  really  a  form  of  activity  although  it 
does  not  issue  in  movement  but  in  the  stoppage  of  movement. 
The  child  who  learns  to  sit  still  in  school  at  proper  times,  to 
check  the  impulses  to  laugh,  to  whistle,  to  talk,  and  to  shout  is 
exhibiting  action — controlled  action.  Similarly  the  one  who 
refrains  from  saying  malicious  things  about  neighbors  who  may 
deserve  it,  who  spreads  the  mantle  of  charity  over  real  faults  of 
others,  who  keeps  his  hand  from  his  neighbor's  pocket,  who  is 
faithful  to  a  trust  confided  to  him,  is  manifesting  activity  no  less 
genuine  and  real  than  if  he  had  acted  upon  all  possible  impulses 
of  the  moment.  The  child  in  training  has  to  learn  to  master  a 
multitude  of  impulses  to  forbidden  actions.  Naturally  he  would 
like  to  whisper,  run  and  look  out  of  the  window,  or  play  with  his 
marbles,  but  a  set  of  developed,  warring  impulses  restrains  him. 
The  child  is  continually  beset  with  stimuli  which  allure  him  from 
the  tasks  which  we  set  him.  Until  he  has  developed  a  great 
many  habits  of  acting  and  doing  the  chances  are  that  the  momen- 
tary stimuli  will  succeed  in  bringing  about  corresponding  reac- 
tions, and  the  things  we  desire  him  to  do  are  forgotten.  Hence 


568  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

the  necessity  of  constant  supervision  of  the  child  if  we  wish  him 
to  succeed  in  resisting  undesirable  stimuli  and  establishing  ap- 
propriate reactions  to  the  stimuli  which  we  select  for  his  training. 
If  we  can  only  make  the  desired  stimuli  as  interesting  as  the 
undesirable,  alluring  ones  we  may  secure  spontaneous  responses. 

The  Purpose  of  Motor  Activity  in  Education. — The  child's 
nervous  system  is  ready  to  respond  to  a  great  variety  of  stimuli 
with  equal  readiness.  One  of  the  most  important  tasks  of  the 
teacher  is  to  select  desirable  stimuli  and  keep  them  beating  upon 
the  child  until  settled  pathways  of  discharge  have  been  estab- 
lished, and  at  the  same  time  to  shield  him  from  undesirable  envi- 
ronment. With  age,  developed  habits  of  action,  and  fixity  instead 
of  plasticity  there  is  much  less  possibility  of  being  influenced  by 
new  forces.  Here  is  an  opportunity  of  education.  A  child  can 
learn  a  new  movement,  say  skating,  much  more  readily  than 
the  adult  because  the  child's  nervous  system  is  so  sensitive  to 
many  stimuli,  while  the  adult  has  become  impervious  to  all  that 
do  not  fit  in  with  his  modes  of  action.  Education  deals  largely 
with  the  problem  of  producing  modifications  of  the  mind.  As 
the  mind  and  its  modifications  can  only  be  known  through  exter- 
nal expression,  it  becomes  highly  important  to  consider  how 
ideas  are  correlated  with  expression  and  how  stimuli  may  be 
utilized  to  produce  efficient  reactions  and  how  in  turn  reactions 
may  influence  intellectual  processes.  Unfortunately  the  formal- 
ists have  overlooked  the  necessities  and  importance  of  expression 
in  education  and  have  devoted  all  their  attention  to  the  absorp- 
tive process. 

It  is  an  auspicious  sign  that  present-day  educators  are  seeking 
earnestly  for  ways  and  means  of  incorporating  into  the  formal 
curriculum  more  and  more  work  which  involves  motor  activity. 
We  are  beginning  to  realize  that  efficient  education  is  not  a 
process  of  cramming  words  into  the  child's  memory.  Ideas  are 
incomplete  until  they  are  realized.  The  most  distinctive  feat- 
ure of  many  ideas  is  this  motor  process.  Most  ideas  are  of 
little  consequence  until  they  find  application  in  some  form  of 
outward  expression  or  influence  some  activity,  at  least  indirectly. 


MOTOR  EXPRESSION  569 

"We  learn  by  doing"  is  a  trite  statement,  but  only  half  under- 
stood by  many,  and  heeded  in  practice  by  still  fewer.  However, 
the  slogan,  "From  impression  to  expression,"  is  becoming  an 
important  watch-word  of  modern  teaching.  It  needs  to  be  sup- 
plemented by  the  statement,  "Through  expression  to  clear  im- 
pression." But  it  is  only  just  beginning  to  be  realized  that 
the  subject  of  motor  education  demands  special  consideration. 
Even  many  of  the. advocates  of  motor  training  have  in  mind  only 
the  skill  resulting  from  handiwork.  The  stock  arguments  made 
in  favor  of  manual  activities  are  somewhat  as  follows:  "Manual 
training,  handicrafts,  and  domestic  science  furnish  activities 
which  reveal  inaccuracies  of  execution;  they  give  opportunity  to 
make  finished  products;  they  furnish  physical  exercise;  they 
develop  an  appreciation  of  the  dignity  of  labor;  they  enable  the 
child  to  follow  his  interests,  etc."  These  are  all  valid,  but  they 
do  not  touch  the  most  fundamental  reasons. 

In  a  previous  section  the  meaning  of  ideo-motor  action  was 
discussed.  That  every  mental  process  has  a  motor  accompani- 
ment is  a  singular  and  significant  fact.  Experiments  go  to  show 
that  with  every  slightest  thought  delicate  recording  apparatus 
attached  to  the  body  may  reveal  changes  in  thought  through  the 
changes  in  the  tracings  made  by  the  apparatus.  Even  our 
aesthetic,  emotional  states  in  contemplating  a  work  of  art  proba- 
bly excite  muscular  adjustments  which  would  be  revealed  if 
properly  adjusted  instruments  could  be  applied  to  the  body. 
Muscular  adjustments  are  so  closely  interwoven  with  all  mental 
activities  that  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  they  are  a  part  of 
the  entire  process  which  could  not  come  to  full  fruition  without 
them.  Our  ideas  of  space  have  been  gained  by  muscular  meas- 
urements and  when  we  think  of  space  we  cannot  dissociate  the 
muscular  correlates  from  the  totality  of  the  idea-process.  What 
would  be  our  idea  of  skating  without  the  various  muscular 
accompaniments?  A  lecture  on  skating,  even  illustrated  with 
pictorial  representations,  or,  still  better,  with  demonstrations  of 
the  process  would  never  give  one  a  real  idea  of  skating.  Simi- 
larly lectures  on  penmanship  and  drawing  unaccompanied  by 


570  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

muscular  co-ordinations  on  the  part  of  the  child  himself  would 
never  teach  him  how  to  write.  The  only  way  to  learn  to  write, 
is  to  write;  to  learn  how  to  saw  boards,  is  to  saw  boards,  etc. 

Mosso  strikingly  emphasized  the  idea  of  the  intimate  relation 
between  motor  and  mental  phenomena  and  the  biological  im- 
portance of  motor  training  for  mental  development  in  his  ad- 
dress, "Psychic  Processes  and  Muscular  Exercises."  1  He  said: 
"  Since  neither  chemically  nor  by  the  use  of  the  strongest  micro- 
scopes can  we  demonstrate  differences  in  the  nerve-cells  of  the 
cerebral  cortex,  it  is  therefore  probable  that  none  such  exist. 
Hence,  I  believe  that  the  psychic  functions  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  motor,  that  rather  the  psychic  phenomenon  and  that 
which  imparts  the  movement  impulse  both  have  their  seat  in  the 
same  cell.  ...  If  the  so-called  motor  region  of  the  brain  is 
destroyed,  it  is  found  that  a  change  of  sensibility  also  takes  place. 
These  facts  suffice  to  show  that,  up  to  the  present,  no  absolute 
local  separation  of  movement  and  sensibility  is  demonstrable." 
In  another  connection  he  states  that  there  is  in  reality  no  dis- 
tinction between  motor  and  sensory  cells. 

Because  of  this  very  intimate  relation  between  mind  and 
muscles,  Professor  Mosso  regards  a  knowledge  of  this  subject 
of  supreme  importance  for  pedagogy.  Motor  nerve  fibres  are 
complete  earlier  than  sensory.  Muscular  exercise  he  considers 
as  better  suited  than  sensory  stimuli  to  develop  the  myelin 
sheaths  (indicating  maturity)  of  the  nerves.  Through  a  series 
of  ingeniously  contrived  experiments,  he  demonstrated  with 
absolute  certainty  the  intimate  and  delicately  adjusted  relation- 
ship between  the  organs  controlled  by  the  sympathetic  system 
and  psychic  states.  Sir  Crichton  Browne  wrote  that  "  swaddling- 
bands  so  applied  at  birth  as  to  restrain  all  muscular  movements, 
and  kept  on  during  infancy  and  childhood  would  result  in  idiocy 
— a  speculation  to  which  the  wretched  muscular  development 
of  most  idiots  and  imbeciles,  and  the  fact  that  their  mental 
training  is  most  successfully  begun  and  carried  on  through  mus- 
cular lessons,  gives  some  countenance." 

1  Clark  University  Decennial  Volume,  1899. 


MOTOR  EXPRESSION  571 

Motor  Development  and  Racial  Intelligence. — Mosso  believes 
that  long  continued  motor  activity  among  a  people  is  promotive 
of  intellectual  development.  In  support  of  this  view  he  says 
that  "during  the  first  epoch  of  the  Renaissance,  the  greatest 
artists  of  Florence  were  all  apprentices  in  the  workshops  of  the 
goldsmiths.  Luca  della  Robbia,  Lorenzo  Ghiberti,  Filippo 
Brunelleschi,  Francia,  Domenico  Ghirlandaio,  Sandro  Botti- 
celli, Andrea  del  Sarto — to  mention  only  a  few  examples — per- 
formed, during  their  apprenticeship,  the  simplest  labors  in  the 
workshop  of  a  goldsmith.  But  the  exercise  with  which  they 
gained  their  manual  dexterity  surely  influenced  also  the  develop- 
ment of  their  genius.  In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
this  school  ended,  but  from  the  pedagogical  stand-point  it  is  still 
worth  studying.  If  I  may  be  permitted  to  express  an  opinion, 
I  would  say  that  the  manual  dexterity  favored  by  this  labor  con- 
tributed much  to  the  development  of  the  great  masters  of  genius. 

"A  fact  which  cannot  be  doubted  is  the  many-sidedness  of 
genius  which  some  Italians  of  the  Renaissance  possessed,  and 
which  has  never  again  appeared  with  like  copiousness.  Giotto 
was  painter,  sculptor,  and  architect.  Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  a 
celebrated  musician,  a  great  painter,  an  engineer,  an  architect, 
a  man  of  letters  and  of  science.  Andrea  del  Verrocchio  was  a 
goldsmith,  sculptor,  engraver,  architect,  painter,  and  musician. 
These  facts  are  to  be  read  in  many  histories  of  art.  An  incom- 
parable example,  however,  is  Michelangelo.  For  twelve  years 
he  studied  anatomy  on  the  cadaver,  and  afterwards  painted  the 
Sixtine  Chapel  and  executed  the  tombs  of  the  Medici  and  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's.  ...  I  am  convinced  that  muscular  move- 
ments have  formed  the  omnipotence  of  genius,  just  as  vice  versa, 
intellectual  exercises  affect  advantageously  the  development  of 
the  muscles.  ...  If  the  Greeks  excelled  all  other  peoples  in 
genius,  it  was  because  they  paid  more  attention  than  did  the 
others  to  bodily  exercise;  they  brought  gymnastics,  the  study 
of  bodily  positions  and  bodily  exercise,  to  a  height  which  has 
never  been  reached  by  other  peoples  since  their  day."  ' 

1  Op.  cil.,  pp.  387-388. 


572  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

The  motor  zone  is  the  largest  specialized  portion  of  the  human 
brain.  Its  exercise  results  in  toning  up  the  entire  brain  as  well 
as  in  developing  this  particular  zone.  If  abundant  motor  activ- 
ity is  lacking  during  the  growing  period  the  entire  brain  and 
nervous  system  suffer.  Activities  like  play  and  manual  work 
are  absolutely  fundamental  to  complete  and  symmetrical  devel- 
opment. It  would  be  better  for  the  child  under  ten  to  be  out 
of  school  kicking  out  the  toes  of  his  shoes  than  sitting  in  a  hot, 
stuffy  school-room  and  precociously  conning  his  printed,  intel- 
lectual lessons.  There  is  time  enough  for  the  intellectual  for- 
malism later  on  if  a  proper  physical  substructure  has  been 
built  up. 

President  Hall  says1  that  "muscles  are  in  a  most  intimate  and 
peculiar  sense  the  organs  of  the  will.  They  have  built  all  the 
roads,  cities,  and  machines  in  the  world,  written  all  the  books, 
spoken  all  the  words,  and,  in  fact,  done  everything  that  man  has 
accomplished  with  matter.  If  they  are  undeveloped  or  grow 
relaxed  and  flabby,  the  dreadful  chasm  between  good  intentions 
and  their  execution  is  liable  to  appear  and  widen.  Character 
might  be  in  a  sense  denned  as  a  plexus  of  motor  habits.  To 
call  conduct  three-fourths  of  life,  with  Matthew  Arnold;  to 
describe  man  as  one-third  intellect  and  two-thirds  will,  with 
Schopenhauer;  to  urge  that  man  is  what  he  does  or  that  he  is 
the  sum  of  his  movements,  with  F.  W.  Robertson;  that  char- 
acter is  simply  muscle  habits,  with  Maudsley;  that  history  is 
consciously  willed  movements  .  .  .;  or  that  we  could  form  no 
conception  of  force  or  energy  in  the  world  but  for  our  own  mus- 
cular effort;  to  hold  that  most  thought  involves  change  of 
muscle  tension  as  more  or  less  integral  to  it — all  this  shows  how 
we  have  modified  the  antique  Ciceronian  conception  vivere  est 
cogitari,  to  vivere  est  velle,  and  gives  us  a  new  sense  of  the  impor- 
tance of  muscular  development  and  regimen." 

Motor  Training  More  than  Manual  Training. — When  motor 
education  is  mentioned  manual  training  is  first  thought  of,  but 
there  are  many  other  activities  that  involve  motor  co-ordination, 

1  Adolescence,  I,  p.  131. 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION 


573 


and  all  mental  processes  necessitate  motor  activities  to  make 
them  clear.  Let  us  note  a  few  illustrations.  Our  ideas  of  a 
pound,  or  an  ounce,  would  indeed  be  vague  if  we  had  never 
gained  personal  experimental  evidence  through  lifting  those 
weights.  Our  notions  of  space  relations  are  all  primarily  built 
up  from  muscular  experiences.  The  infant's  notions  of  distance 
are  vague  until  his  muscular  experiences  render  them  precise 
and  clear.  In  fact,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  child  has  any  notions  of 
distance  antecedent  to  his  experiences  in  measuring  and  testing. 
His  Teachings  and  travels  and  eye-movements  all  contribute  to 
his  knowledge  of  space.  Retinal  images  alone  could  reveal 
little.  Eye  movements  must  supplement  and  even  contribute 
most  of  the  data.  It  is  no  fiction  to  say  that  children  grasp  for 
the  moon.  Why  should  they  not  do  so?  Before  muscular 
experiences  disclose  the  real  meanings,  a  foot  is  not  different 
visually  from  a  rod,  or  a  mile.  I  have  even  seen  children  seven 
months  old  reach  for  the  moon.  Both  two-dimensional  and 
three-dimensional  space  are  realized  only  through  explorations 
accomplished  by  muscular  movements. 

Some  Fundamental  Motor  Concepts. — As  the  child  learns  the 
use  of  its  arms,  accomplishes  the  art  of  creeping,  and  the  still 
more  complex  art  of  walking,  his  conceptions  of  space  grow 
wonderfully.  A  child  not  allowed  to  creep  or  to  walk  is  being 
deprived  of  a  most  fundamental  birthright.  Like  all  individ- 
uals who  never  travel  he  remains  provincial.  These  principles 
should  receive  abundant  application  in  every-day  education  and 
in  school-room  practice.  When  pupils  are  learning  the  tables 
of  denominate  numbers,  instead  of  going  through  mere  word 
mouthings  they  should  be  required  to  lift  weights,  and  measure 
distances,  areas,  and  volumes.  An  inch,  a  foot,  a  yard,  a  mile, 
an  acre,  a  cubic  foot,  a  cord,  should  come  to  stand  for  definitely 
imaged  realities.  A  boy  who  has  sawed  wood  will  not  forget 
what  a  cord  is,  nor  will  one  who  has  walked  miles,  and  around 
and  over  acres  be  dependent  upon  verbal  memories  for  his 
knowledge  of  these  units.  If  pupils  are  studying  the  table  of 
wood  measure  they  should  actually  measure  piles  of  wood.  My 


574  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

own  knowledge  of  a  cord  of  wood  was  made  exceedingly  tangible 
and  vivid.  Days  and  weeks  at  the  wood-pile  and  in  the  forest 
chopping  cordwood  supplemented  by  loading  and  hauling  the 
wood  to  market  over  rough  roads  gave  me  such  a  personal 
knowledge  of  every  element  in  the  problem  that  the  ideas  will 
be  mine  as  long  as  time  shall  permit  my  brain  and  muscles  to 
function.  Not  every  boy,  and  still  less  every  girl,  has  need  of 
making  wood  measure  so  clear,  real,  and  vivid,  but  the  method 
of  real  learning  therein  illustrated  is  applicable  to  every  subject. 
All  ideas  studied  should  be  gained,  as  far  as  possible,  through 
actual  experience.  The  more  nearly  the  experience  grows  out 
of  life's  activities  and  interests,  the  better. 

If  an  idea  of  "sixteen  ounces  makes  one  pound"  is  to  be 
gained,  the  only  real  way  is  primarily  by  lifting  or  "  hefting  "  and 
secondarily  by  seeing  the  relations.  A  knowledge  of  an  inch, 
a  rod,  a  mile,  an  acre,  etc.,  can  only  be  gained  by  actual  personal 
measurement.  I  once  visited  a  high-school  class  which  was 
studying  the  United  States  system  of  land  survey.  They  were 
talking  glibly  about  acres,  sections,  and  square  miles.  Sus- 
pecting that  their  knowledge  consisted  of  mere  words,  I  asked: 
"  How  long  would  it  take  you  to  walk  around  a  section  of  land  ?  " 
"Fifteen  minutes,"  was  the  instant  reply  of  one  pupil.  My 
belief  was  confirmed  and  I  replied:  "You  must  be  a  sprinter." 
The  farmer  boy's  knowledge  of  acres  is  gained  by  following  the 
plough  up  and  down  the  furrows,  day  after  day,  fencing  in  an 
acre,  ten  acres,  or  fifty  acres,  mowing  the  hay,  cradling  the  grain, 
binding  the  sheaves,  even  by  grubbing  out  the  trees  and  clearing 
the  land.  Of  course,  acres  are  not  the  only  concepts  worth  while 
knowing.  It  is  quite  probable  that  we  might  go  through  life 
ignorant  of  the  concepts  and  be  highly  respected  and  intelligent, 
but  we  should  have  other  concepts  which  are  exactly  as  definite 
as  the  farmer  boy's  of  acres,  rods,  and  sections.  The  exam- 
ple illustrates  the  end  and  the  means  to  be  employed  in  gaining 
any  kind  of  real  knowledge. 

The  task  of  education  has  been  considered  too  largely  as  one 
of  instructing  the  child  so  that  he  may  know  about  things.  But 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  575 

a  great  part  of  a  child's  education  should  be  concerned  with 
teaching  him  to  do  things,  to  put  into  execution  ideas  understood, 
sometimes  even  to  utilize  ideas  and  processes  which  are  vaguely 
or  not  at  all  understood.  It  is  highly  important  that  the  child 
be  able  to  stand  well,  to  run  easily,  to  sit  properly,  to  breathe 
correctly,  to  sleep  adequately  and  under  hygienic  conditions,  to 
move  gracefully,  to  close  doors  quietly,  to  avoid  awkwardness, 
to  be  at  ease  in  company.  He  cannot  claim  to  be  properly 
educated  without  having  developed  the  habit  of  careful  attention 
to  health  and  personal  appearance;  unless  he  habitually  ob- 
serves good  manners,  habitually  manifests  politeness  and  all 
other  signs  of  good  breeding;  nor  without  regularly  using  the 
mother  tongue  easily,  accurately,  pleasantly,  and  forcefully. 
Along  with  these  should  be  thoroughly  acquired  the  habits  of 
right  moral  responses  and  a  cheerful,  happy,  altruistic  attitude 
toward  life's  activities  in  general.  All  these  come  only  after 
much  practice,  and  they  are  imperfect  until  they  become  largely 
automatic.  They  must  have  become,  not  second  nature,  but 
primary  nature.  Along  with  his  play  the  child  should  have  the 
"work  habit"  thoroughly  ingrained,  and  much  of  this  work 
should  be  manual.  Manual  training  in  the  schools  and  foot- 
ball and  gymnasium  exercises  should  supplement  the  motor 
training  afforded  by  useful  occupations  and  not  supplant  it. 

Motor  Activities  in  the  Home. — Every  boy  and  every  girl 
should  have  definite  home  duties  demanding  muscular  exercise 
and  skill.  The  boy  can  mow  the  lawn,  split  the  wood  and  carry 
it  in,  tend  the  furnace,  make  boxes  and  shelves,  mend  the 
fences,  run  errands,  wash  dishes,  sweep,  dust,  make  beds,  etc. 
His  sister  should  be  equally  interested  in  gardening,  dish- 
washing, and  in  addition  should  be  able  to  cook  a  meal,  cut  and 
fit  a  garment,  or  saw  a  board  and  drive  a  nail  without  danger  to 
her  fingers  or  to  bystanders.  Every  home  should  have  its  gar- 
den and  its  tool-chest.  Both  boys  and  girls  should  have  an 
intelligent  interest  in  them  derived  through  active  acquaintance. 
"Into  the  education  of  the  great  majority  of  children  there 
enters  as  an  important  part  their  contribution  to  the  daily  labor 


576  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

of  the  household  and  the  farm,  or,  at  least,  of  the  household.  It 
is  one  of  the  serious  consequences  of  the  rapid  concentration  of 
population  into  cities  and  large  towns,  and  of  the  minute  division 
of  labor  which  characterizes  modern  industries,  that  this  whole- 
some part  of  education  is  less  easily  secured  than  it  used  to  be 
when  the  greater  part  of  the  population  was  engaged  in  agri- 
culture. Organized  education  must,  therefore,  supply  in  urban 
communities  a  good  part  of  the  manual  and  moral  training  which 
the  co-operation  of  children  in  the  work  of  father  and  mother 
affords  in  agricultural  communities.  Hence  the  great  impor- 
tance in  any  urban  population  of  facilities  for  training  children 
to  accurate  hand- work,  and  for  teaching  them  patience,  fore- 
thought, and  good  judgment  in  productive  labor."  1 

Hall  maintains  that  "adolescent  girls,  especially  in  the  middle 
classes,  in  upper  grammar  and  high  school  grades,  during  the 
golden  age  for  nascent  muscular  development,  suffer  perhaps 
most  of  all  in  this  respect.  Grave  as  are  the  evils  of  child  labor, 
I  believe  far  more  pubescents  in  this  country  now  suffer  from  too 
little  than  from  too  much  physical  exercise,  while  most  who 
suffer  from  work  do  so  because  it  is  too  uniform,  one-sided, 
accessory,  or  under  unwholesome  conditions,  and  not  because  it 
is  excessive  in  amount.  Modern  industry  has  thus  largely 
ceased  to  be  a  means  of  physical  development  and  needs  to  be 
offset  by  compensating  modes  of  activity.  Many  labor-saving 
devices  increase  neural  strain,  so  that  one  of  the  problems  of  our 
time  is  how  to  preserve  and  restore  nerve  energy.  Under  present 
industrial  systems  this  must  grow  worse  and  not  better  in  the 
future.  Healthy  natural  industries  will  be  less  and  less  open 
to  the  young.  This  is  the  new  situation  that  now  confronts 
those  concerned  for  motor  education,  if  they  would  only  make 
good  what  is  lost."  2 

The  Laboratory. — Not  only  do  our  modern  laboratory  methods 
furnish  sensory  experiences  but  also  opportunities  for  motor  ac- 
companiments. Whole  classes  of  ideas  would  be  vague  and 

1  Charles  W.  Eliot,  Educational  Reform,  p.  405. 

2  Adolescence,  I,  p.  168. 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  577 

incomplete  without  the  knowledge  furnished  through  the  motor 
activities.  The  laboratory  is  not  only  a  place  for  observing 
things  but  also  a  place  for  doing  and  making,  a  place  for  labor— 
a  " labor-atory ."  The  engineering  student  is  obliged  to  make 
models,  and  to  construct  apparatus  and  machines.  He  is  con- 
tinually engaged  in  making,  mapping,  and  charting,  and  where 
actual  constructive  representation  is  not  possible  or  feasible, 
plans  are  drawn  to  scale,  and  in  manifold  ways  either  primarily 
or  secondarily  the  muscles  are  employed  in  gaining,  vivifying, 
and  fixing  ideas  of  realities.  The  modern  medical  student  em- 
ploys eye,  ear,  touch,  and  every  sort  of  motor  experience  possible. 
Not  only  must  he  see  and  touch,  but  he  must  train  himself  to 
delicacy  of  measurement  in  locating  various  portions  of  the 
anatomy.  Touch  is  not  of  the  highest  use  when  passive.  Active 
touch  refines  exceedingly  our  passive  tactile  perceptions.  Even 
the  delicacy  of  visual  perceptions  are  largely  due  to  eye-move- 
ments. Students  in  all  laboratory  courses  should  be  continually 
engaged  in  making,  mapping,  charting,  and  constructing. 

Manual  Training. — Some  form  of  manual  training  should  find 
a  place  in  every  school  curriculum,  and  all  pupils  in  the  school 
should  be  required  to  do  some  of  the  work.  This  is  not  to  take 
the  place  of  physical  training,  nor  can  we  substitute  for  it  the 
manual  work  ordinarily  done  at  home.  The  school  should 
emphasize  the  principles  of  manual  training  rather  than  attempt 
to  develop  extreme  skill  in  any  one  direction.  Although,  on 
practical  grounds,  I  should  advocate  trade  schools,  theoretically, 
I  should  argue  against  them.  The  purpose  of  all  education 
should  be  to  secure  not  knowledge  alone,  but  also  some  form  of 
expression  of  the  knowledge  gained  in  life's  activities.  All  edu- 
cation should  have  this  practical  aim.  There  is  no  form  of 
education  which  should  not  be  practical  in  that  it  should  result 
in  action  which  furthers  some  end  of  life.  Because  of  the  cor- 
relation of  the  mind  and  body,  there  is  a  tendency  for  all  ideas  to 
issue  in  some  form  of  motor  expression.  However,  unless  there 
is  definite  training  the  resulting  action  is  not  necessarily  a  desir- 
able one.  The  energies  developed  through  an  idea  may  be  dis- 


578  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

sipated  or  diffused  rather  than  concentrated  and  hence  produce 
useless  results.  This  is  the  outcome  of  much  of  our  knowledge. 
Its  active  results  are  indefinite  and  of  no  importance  to  the  indi- 
vidual. Hence  the  necessity  for  definite  training  in  correlating 
ideas  and  actions. 

Manual  training  affords  one  of  the  best  means  for  correlating 
ideas  and  actions  and  making  actions  definite  rather  than  dif- 
fused. It  is  sometimes  urged  that  those  engaged  in  manual 
labor  do  not  need  manual  training.  This,  however,  is  erroneous. 
They  perhaps  do  not  need  so  much  manual  training  as  those  who 
are  engaged  in  sedentary  occupations,  but  even  the  farmer  and  the 
artisan  need  training  which  will  secure  precision  of  movement. 
Most  laborers  do  not  use  sufficiently  the  finer  muscles  of  the  body 
and  hence  never  secure  great  precision  of  movement — and  con- 
sequently lack  precision  of  thinking. 

The  majority  of  our  ideas,  however  abstract,  are  fundamentally 
dependent  upon  some  form  of  motor  activity  for  their  exactness. 
The  philosopher,  the  author,  and  the  scientist,  equally  as  well  as 
the  laborer  or  the  tradesman,  need  manual  dexterity  and  accu- 
racy of  motor  co-ordinations  because  their  ideas  cannot  be  clear 
or  exact  except  as  they  are  gained  and  clarified  through  motor 
activity.  A  large  part  of  the  success  of  the  chemist  depends 
upon  his  dexterity  in  manipulating  apparatus  and  devising  ex- 
periments. Without  manual  skill  he  could  not  accurately  test 
old  theories  nor  develop  new  ones.  The  slightest  inaccuracy  in 
weighing  a  substance  oftentimes  vitiates  whole  trains  of  scientific 
results.  Hence  the  chemist,  the  physicist,  and  the  engineer 
must  have  definite  manual  skill.  The  great  surgeons  owe  their 
success  in  no  small  degree  to  the  extreme  fineness  of  their  sense 
of  active  touch.  Without  this  fineness  even  though  possessed 
of  all  the  medical  theories  known  to  the  scientific  world,  no  phy- 
sician could  become  a  great  surgeon. 

Again,  for  example,  all  our  notions  of  weight,  size,  distance, 
hardness,  roughness,  etc.,  are  dependent  upon  motor  activity, 
If  not  gained  in  fundamental  ways  the  resulting  ideas  are  entirely 
lacking  in  definiteness  and  clearness  and  usually  consist  merely 


MOTOR  EXPRESSION  579 

of  words  and  symbols.  We  are  apt  to  become  mere  accumulators 
of  words,  vendors  of  second-hand  knowledge  about  things,  rather 
than  possessors  of  first-hand  concepts.  We  are  apt  to  become 
traffickers  in  symbols  of  knowledge,  rather  than  possessors  of 
knowledge  itself.  We  are  apt  to  become  dreamers  instead  of 
doers.  Further,  since  the  race  primarily  gained  its  knowledge 
at  first  hand,  and  only  recently  began  to  use  written  symbols 
extensively,  we  are  admonished  that  the  proper  method  of  gain- 
ing knowledge  is  through  the  senses  aided  by  motor  activity. 
Scripture1  emphasizes  the  importance  of  manual  training  in  the 
following  incisive  fashion:  "Manual  training  develops  the  intel- 
lectual side  of  the  mind  as  nothing  else  can.  By  book-work  or 
by  study  a  boy  never  learns  to  think  or  understand,  or  even  re- 
member, as  well  as  he  might;  it  is  only  when  he  gets  involved 
in  sports  and  games  like  base-ball  and  canoeing,  or  in  machinery 
like  lathes  and  buzz-saws,  or  in  laboratory  complications  like 
chemical  analyses  and  measurements  of  electricity,  that  he  ever 
learns  to  think  fully  as  a  man." 

Various  Means  of  Motor  Training. — In  considering  motor  edu- 
cation it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  there  are  manifold  forms 
of  motor  activity  besides  those  connected  with  the  manual  arts. 
All  activities  which  give  control  of  the  body  and  secure  poise 
are  important  to  cultivate.  Even  without  possessing  manual 
training  departments  as  such  the  school  possesses  many  oppor- 
tunities for  important  motor  training.  Walking,  standing,  sit- 
ting, silence,  orderliness,  good  manners,  politeness,  all  demand 
the  development  of  motor  habits.  The  plays  and  games  can 
be  turned  to  good  account.  Writing,  drawing,  map-making, 
constructing  apparatus  and  setting  it  up,  conducting  experi- 
ments, all  demand  a  high  type  of  manual  training.  A  musical 
education  depends  largely  upon  skill  resulting  from  motor  edu- 
cation. Apart  from  the  role  performed  by  the  sensitized  ear, 
musical  skill  is  entirely  a  matter  of  training  muscles  to  respond 
in  delicate  co-ordinations.  Singing  and  playing  any  musical 
instrument  require  motor  training  of  a  high  degree. 

1  Manual  Training  Magazine,  I,  24. 


58o  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Motor  Aspect  of  Language. — Every  idea-process  gets  inter- 
woven with  a  great  variety  of  muscular  co-ordinations,  and 
among  the  most  prominent  are  those  involved  in  our  use  of 
language.  The  words  and  symbols  are  not  only  means  of  men- 
tal economy,  expression,  and  of  understanding  others,  but  they 
become  in  reality  a  part  of  the  ideational  process.  The  idea 
could  never  have  attained  the  same  clearness  without  the  use  of 
words;  in  fact  full-fledged  abstractions  could  not  have  been 
gained  at  all  without  the  use  of  language  and  they  cannot  be 
revived  without  employing  language  symbols.  Consequently, 
in  considering  motor  training  we  must  not  overlook  these  most 
refined  of  all  motor  relations  between  thought  and  language. 
There  must  be  adequate  opportunity  for  expressing  ideas  not 
only  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  ideas  permanent,  but 
equally  important  and  more  fundamental,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  the  ideas  themselves  clear  and  vivid.  Real  ideas  are 
not  something  added  to  one's  mind,  but  a  part  oj  the  mind  itself. 
Halleck  says  to  speak  of  "motor  ideas"  is  as  tautological  as  to 
speak  of  "wet  water."  One  of  the  specific  purposes  of  the  reci- 
tation is  to  afford  opportunity  for  expression.  The  recitation 
may  demand  oral  expression,  dramatization,  written  exercises, 
drawing,  constructing  apparatus,  moulding,  or  some  form  of  man- 
ual training.  The  motor  activity  serves  not  only  to  fix  ideas,  but 
also  to  clarify  and  enlarge  them,  and  even  to  furnish  new  ideas. 
To  abolish  the  recitation  and  depend  entirely  upon  the  absorp- 
tive process  is  to  fail  to  utilize  one  of  the  most  important  means 
of  education. 

Vocal  speech,  for  example,  requires  the  nicest  sort  of  motor 
adjustments,  and  the  ability  to  talk  fluently,  accurately,  and  in 
a  pleasing  manner  is  no  mean  accomplishment.  The  possession 
of  this  ability  implies  accuracy  and  clearness  of  ideas  as  well  as 
training  in  expression.  Oral  speech  is  often  one's  most  valua- 
ble asset.  It  is  usually  the  best  index  of  what  we  know  and 
what  we  are.  No  motor  training  is  harder  to  acquire,  rarer  to 
be  observed,  and  worthier  of  cultivation  than  perfect  oral  speech. 
Much  time  in  the  child's  early  life  is  occupied  with  acquiring 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  581 

speech.  The  process  is  largely  one  of  subconscious  imitation, 
but  the  results  are  no  less  certain  and  valuable  than  when  gained 
through  painful,  conscious  attention  to  the  process.  The  child 
who  hears  correct  language  in  the  home  is  fortunate  indeed. 
He  is  saved  many  painful  hours  of  unlearning.  The  schools  also 
are  relieved  of  the  burden  of  undoing  undesirable  habits.  Lan- 
guage training  in  the  lower  school  grades  should  be  largely  oral 
and  is  a  fundamental  problem  in  motor  adjustment.  When 
teaching  written  expression,  of  course,  the  problem  is  also  one 
of  motor  training,  and  even  a  most  important  kind  of  manual 
training.  Learning  a  foreign  language  demands  the  acquisition 
of  many  motor  adjustments.  The  memorizing  of  a  vocabulary 
is  for  certain  types  of  individuals  very  largely  a  task  of  motor 
memory.  Acquiring  accuracy  and  facility  in  speaking  the  for- 
eign language  is  pre-eminently  a  motor  task.  To  write  it  de- 
mands still  other  muscular  training. 

Training  of  Defectives. — The  methods  of  dealing  with  defec- 
tives have  been  very  radically  modified  during  the  last  few  years, 
and  one  of  the  directions  of  change  is  in  the  greater  employment 
of  motor  activities.  Formerly  the  first  attempt  to  train  the 
feeble-minded  consisted  in  an  effort  to  teach  them  reading  and 
writing — the  very  last  things  that  they  needed.  Now,  with 
greater  wisdom,  motor  training  is  made  the  first  consideration. 
The  unfortunates  are  taught  to  walk,  run,  stand,  throw  and 
catch  a  ball,  climb  ladders,  use  simple  tools,  put  on  their  own 
clothing,  to  wrestle,  etc.  These  activities  give  control  of  the 
larger  movements  of  the  body  and  gradually  finer  co-ordinations 
are  introduced.  If  they  master  these  activities  they  are  given  exer- 
cises in  gaining  sense-perceptions  through  a  variety  of  motor  ac- 
tivities. Manual  training  occupies  an  important  place.  Abstract 
intellectual  work  like  reading  and  arithmetic  are  taken  up  only  if 
sufficient  progress  has  been  made  in  the  foregoing  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  intelligent  progress  can  be  made.  Methods  of  dealing 
with  the  criminal  classes  have  also  been  transformed  in  many 
reformatories.  Manual  training  occupies  the  foreground  there.1 

1  See  the  Elmira  Reformatory  Year  Book  for  1897,  pp.  57-121. 


582  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

General  Suggestions. — James  says  concerning  the  necessity 
for  reactions : 1  "If  all  this  be  true,  then  immediately  one  general 
aphorism  emerges  which  ought  by  logical  right  to  dominate  the 
entire  conduct  of  the  teacher  in  the  class-room.  No  reception 
•without  reaction,  no  impression  without  correlative  expression— 
this  is  the  great  maxim  which  the  teacher  ought  never  to  forget. 
An  impression  which  simply  flows  in  at  the  pupil's  eyes  or  ears, 
and  in  no  way  modifies  his  active  life,  is  an  impression  gone  to 
waste.  It  is  physiologically  incomplete.  It  leaves  no  fruits 
behind  it  in  the  way  of  capacity  acquired.  Even  as  a  mere  im- 
pression, it  fails  to  produce  its  proper  effect  upon  the  memory; 
for,  to  remain  fully  among  the  acquisitions  of  this  latter  faculty, 
it  must  be  wrought  into  the  whole  cycle  of  our  operations.  Its 
motor  consequences  are  what  clinch  it.  Some  effect  due  to  it  in 
the  way  of  an  activity  must  return  to  the  mind  in  the  form  of 
the  sensation  oj  having  acted,  and  connect  itself  with  the  im- 
pression. The  most  durable  impressions  are  those  on  account 
of  which  we  speak  or  act,  or  else  are  inwardly  convulsed.  The 
older  pedagogic  method  of  learning  things  by  rote,  and  reciting 
them  parrot-like  in  the  school-room,  rested  on  the  truth  that  a 
thing  merely  read  or  heard,  and  never  verbally  reproduced,  con- 
tracts the  weakest  possible  adhesion  in  the  mind.  Verbal  reci- 
tation or  reproduction  is  thus  a  highly  important  kind  of  reactive 
behavior  on  our  impressions." 

If  it  is  a  law  of  life  that  expression  naturally  follows  impres- 
sions, we  may  rightly  be  challenged  with  the  query  why  educa- 
tion needs  to  concern  itself  with  producing  reactions?  The 
answer  is:  although  ideo-motor  action  is  the  rule,  we  must  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  in  experiencing  any  new  impressions,  chil- 
dren, and  even  adults,  are  much  like  primitive  organisms. 
Energy  tends  to  be  diffused  and  reactions  are  so  scattered  that 
the  effects  are  lost  or  else  the  reaction  may  be  wholly  at  variance 
with  the  idea.  A  given  stimulus  may  become  coupled  with  an 
undesirable  response  as,  for  example,  the  child  may  be  asked 
to  spell  a  word  and  happen  upon  a  misspelling  and  this  misspell- 
1  Talks  to  Teachers,  pp.  33,  34. 


MOTOR   EXPRESSION  583 

ing  tends  to  stick  unless  education  furnishes  the  right  response. 
An  incorrect  pronunciation,  a  bad  method  of  holding  the  pen, 
or  an  improper  posture  may  be  fixed  upon  by  chance,  and 
training  must  be  given  to  guard  against  them  or  eradicate  them 
if  once  established. 

Again,  the  response  may  be  so  diffused  and  general  as  to  be 
very  indefinite  and  inexact,  as  when  the  child  is  beginning  to 
talk.  He  hears  words  and  is  stimulated  to  speak,  but  only  a  long 
process  of  trial  and  error  establishes  correctness  of  response. 
The  habit  once  fixed  is  a  means  of  mental  enslavure.  We  are 
by  no  means  certain  either  that  stimuli  have  been  perceived 
accurately  until  they  produce  the  right  response.  When  the 
child  fails  to  pronounce  a  word  correctly  we  have  reason  to  be 
suspicious  of  his  perception  of  the  proper  sounds.  Of  course 
it  is  possible  to  perceive  relations  that  cannot  be  expressed,  but 
in  general  the  more  accurate  and  refined  the  expression  the  more 
exact  the  perception.  Education  must  then  secure  reactions  for 
the  purpose  of  understanding,  clarifying,  and  refining  percep- 
tions, concepts,  and  other  mental  processes. 


XXII 

THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING 

Preliminary  Meaning  of  Thinking. — In  the  older  books  on 
psychology  which  divided  the  mind  very  definitely  into  separate 
and  distinct  "faculties,"  thinking  was  considered  as  wholly 
different  from  other  intellectual  processes.  But  when  we  analyze 
the  process  and  find  that  it  consists  of  carefully  considering, 
weighing,  comparing,  and  forming  judgments  concerning  given 
data,  we  notice  that  this  is  not  wholly  different  from  what  takes 
place  in  perception.  In  fact,  in  any  effective  process  of  recog- 
nition or  of  identification,  similar  processes  take  place.  The 
child  that  recognizes  its  mother  or  a  toy  as  familiar  must  go 
through  the  mental  act  of  comparing  the  object  present  to  the 
senses  with  the  mental  idea  of  it  and  then  judge  that  it  agrees  with 
that  idea.  If  not  recognized  it  would  be  because  the  sensations 
did  not  correspond  to  any  mental  product  in  stock.  Whatever 
we  perceive  definitely  must  be  marked  off  from  all  other  objects. 
For  example,  in  perceiving  my  lamp  on  the  table  before  me  I 
must  differentiate  that  from  the  table  and  from  the  books  strewn 
around.  I  must  also  compare  it  with  my  idea  of  my  lamp  and 
conclude  that  it  corresponds  with  my  remembered  idea.  Then 
only  do  I  know  this  object  to  be  my  lamp. 

Thinking  in  Other  Processes. — In  remembering  or  imagining 
effectively  we  must  likewise  note  resemblances  and  differences, 
make  analyses,  compare,  weigh,  and  judge  whether  the  remem- 
bered or  imagined  thing  is  the  one  desired.  In  reciting  a  lesson 
the  child  mind,  by  virtue  of  mechanical  associations  so  character- 
istic of  childhood,  recalls  many  things  that  are  irrelevant.  To 
recite  properly  he  must  scrutinize  these  ideas  and  exclude  those 
that  do  not  bear  upon  the  point  under  discussion.  This  is  to 

584 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING  585 

think.  That  the  child  does  not  give  an  orderly  array  of  facts 
is  not  an  indication  that  he  does  not  think,  but  it  is  evidence  that 
he  does  not  think  carefully.  Some  types  of  school  work  do  not 
demand  a  high  order  of  thinking.  They  are  based  largely  upon 
the  formation  of  mechanical  associations.  But  even  such  work 
demands  some  thinking.  For  example,  in  reciting  an  elementary 
lesson  in  a  foreign  language,  which  is  largely  memory  work,  there 
must  be  some  comparison  and  discrimination.  But,  to  acquire 
the  vocabulary  of  a  foreign  language  does  not  require  a  high 
order  of  thought,  because  the  number  of  ideas  to  be  compared  is 
small,  and  mechanical  registration  has  made  the  matter  largely 
habitual.  To  master  the  grammar  and  to  learn  to  read  critically 
or  to  evaluate  the  literature  critically  require  most  careful,  pains- 
taking, and  exacting  comparisons — thinking.  To  build  up  a 
consistent  imaginative  product  requires  a  careful  discrimination 
among  the  many  pictures  that  may  be  suggested.  The  success- 
ful poet,  painter,  or  sculptor  must  exercise  careful  judgment 
concerning  the  possible  combinations  suggested  in  imagery. 
Even  the  one  who  indulges  in  day-dreams  or  allows  the  fancy 
to  run  riot  must  exercise  some  selective  judgment.  Only  that 
which  is  pleasing  is  harbored;  that  which  is  painful  or  displeas- 
ing is  rejected.  To  do  either  involves  discrimination,  identifi- 
cation, and  judgment. 

Halleck  says:1  "It  was  formerly  supposed  that  human  beings 
did  not  think  early  in  life;  that  then  they  perceived  and  remem- 
bered; that  after  they  had  seen  and  treasured  up  a  great  deal, 
they  began  to  think.  These  processes  were  considered  to  be  as 
sharply  marked  off  from  each  other  as  the  Dead  Sea  and  the 
ocean.  We  now  know  that  no  one  can  perceive  without  thinking 
at  the  same  time."  Dr.  Harris  has  brought  this  idea  before  us 
very  cogently,  and  some  may  think  even  in  an  extreme  way  in 
the  following  statement:2  "Sense-perception  is  not  a  simple  act 
that  can  be  no  further  analyzed.  In  its  most  elementary  forms 
one  may  readily  find  the  entire  structure  of  reason.  The  differ- 

1  Psychology  and  Psychic  Culture,  p.  182. 

3  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  63. 


586  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

ence  between  the  higher  and  lower  forms  of  intelligence  con- 
sists not  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  phases  of  thought,  but 
in  the  degree  of  completeness  of  the  consciousness  of  them 
— the  whole  is  present,  but  is  not  consciously  perceived  to  be 
present,  in  the  lower  forms.  The  whole  structure  of  reason 
functions  not  only  in  every  act  of  mind,  no  matter  how  low  in 
the  scale — say  even  in  the  animal  intelligence — nay,  more,  in  the 
life  of  the  plant  which  has  not  yet  reached  the  plane  of  intellect 
— yes,  even  in  the  movement  of  inorganic  matter:  in  the  laws 
of  celestial  gravitation  there  is  manifested  the  structural  frame- 
work of  reason." 

Ribot,  in  The  Evolution  of  General  Ideas,  similarly  remarks 
that  the  operations  of  abstraction  and  generalization  "exist 
already  in  perception,  and  advance  by  successive  and  easily 
determined  stages  to  the  more  elevated  forms  of  pure  sym- 
bolism, accessible  only  to  the  minority."  *  Romanes  em- 
phasizes this  genetic  view  of  mind  and  its  varying  degrees  of 
complexity  as  opposed  to  the  "compartment"  psychology.  He 
believes  that  even  reason  is  involved  in  perception.  To  be  sure 
in  simple  perceptions  reasoning  is  nothing  more  than  crude 
inference,  but  inference  consists  in  the  perception  of  relations, 
and  the  formation  of  conclusions  is  the  basis  of  reasoning.  The 
following  quotation  is  apropos  with  reference  to  the  relations 
among  the  various  intellectual  powers,  as  illustrating  the  meaning 
of  thinking,  and  also  because  of  its  importance  in  showing  the 
evolutionary  stages  of  the  processes.  "While  treating  of  the 
genesis  of  perception  I  pointed  out  that  the  faculty  admits  of 
numberless  degrees  of  elaboration.  These  we  found  to  depend 
largely,  or  even  chiefly,  upon  the  degree  of  complexity  presented 
by  the  objects  or  relations  perceived.  Now  when  a  perception 
reaches  a  certain  degree  of  elaboration,  so  that  it  is  able  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  relation  between  relations,  it  begins  to  pass 
into  reason,  or  ratiocination.  Contrariwise,  in  its  highest  stages 
of  development,  ratiocination  is  merely  a  highly  complex  process 
of  perception — i.  e.,  a  perception  of  the  equivalency  of  perceived 

1  Preface,  p.  v. 


THE  NATURE   OF  THINKING  587 

ratios,  which  are  themselves  more  or  less  elaborated  percepts 
formed  out  of  simpler  percepts,  or  percepts  lying  nearer  to  the 
immediate  data  of  sensation.  Thus,  universally  ratiocination 
(reasoning)  may  be  considered  as  the  higher  development  of 
perception;  for  at  no  point  can  we  draw  the  line  and  say  that 
the  two  are  distinct.  In  other  words,  a  perception  is  always 
in  its  essential  nature  what  logicians  term  a  conclusion,  whether 
it  has  reference  to  the  simplest  memory  of  a  past  sensation  or  to 
the  highest  product  of  abstract  thought.  .  .  .  There  is  no  real 
break  between  cognition  of  the  lowest  and  of  the  highest  order."  1 

Binet  in  his  book,  The  Psychology  oj  Reasoning,  has  a  chap- 
ter on  "Reasoning  in  Perception,"  in  which  he  traces  the  de- 
velopment of  perception  and  shows  that  "the  work  involved  in 
every  perception  is  identical  with  the  operation  which  consists 
in  drawing  a  conclusion  when  the  premises  are  given."  "  From 
the  logical  point  of  view  the  percept  is  a  judgment,  an  act  which 
determines  a  relation  between  two  facts,  or  in  other  words,  an 
act  which  affirms  [or  denies]  something  of  something."  "In 
short,  perception  and  reasoning  have  the  three  following  char- 
acteristics in  common:  First,  they  belong  to  mediate  and  indi- 
rect knowledge;  second,  they  require  the  intervention  of  truths 
formerly  known  (recollections,  facts  of  experience,  premises); 
third,  they  imply  the  recognition  of  a  similitude  between  the 
fact  affirmed  and  the  anterior  truth  upon  which  it  depends. 
The  union  of  these  characteristics  shows  that  perception  is 
comparable  to  the  conclusions  of  logical  reasoning."  4  It  should 
perhaps  be  stated  that  Binet  adds  in  a  foot-note  the  explanation 
that,  "in  perception,  the  mind  never  rises  so  high  as  a  general 
conclusion;  it  simply  comes  to  a  conclusion  on  the  object  present 
to  the  senses.  It  is  an  inference  from  particular  to  particular, 
and  likewise,  in  the  case  where  perception  is  aided  by  a  consid- 
erable number  of  anterior  experiences,  it  is  a  deduction." 

Unity  of  Mental  Life. — From  the  emphasis  afforded  by  the 
opinions  of  the  foregoing  notable  psychologists  we  may  justly 

1  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  p.  319. 

2  P.  91.  3P.  78.  4P.  88. 


588  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

reaffirm  that  thinking  is  not  an  absolutely  new  process,  but  that 
it  is  present  in  varying  degrees  in  all  mental  processes  above 
mere  sensations — which  are  like  the  chemist's  atom — hypothet- 
ical. Any  process  that  rises  to  the  dignity  of  a  perception  in- 
volves thinking.  The  sharp  lines  of  demarcation  between  the 
various  phases  of  mental  life,  which  to  the  untrained  or  the 
beginner  in  the  study  of  psychology  seem  to  exist,  no  longer  are 
visible.  On  the  contrary,  the  several  "faculties"  or  powers 
which  seemed  to  be  so  definitely  separated  from  each  other  now 
appear  to  shade  off  into  each  other.  Mental  life  instead  of 
being  a  piece-work  is  seen  more  and  more  as  a  unity.  Defini- 
tions of  mental  powers  which  at  first  seemed  absolutely  inclusive 
and  exclusive  now  need  many  qualifying  codicils.  It  is  neces- 
sary in  all  science  to  classify  knowledge.  That  is  one  meaning 
of  scientific  procedure.  We  classify  and  arrange  material  into 
groups  for  the  purpose  of  isolating  it  and  subjecting  it  to  closer 
scrutiny.  The  classes  then  serve  the  same  functions  as  words. 
They  are  tickets  or  signs  by  which  groups  of  ideas  are  identified. 
In  their  highest  phases  of  development  two  kinds  of  mental  life 
are,  of  course,  clearly  marked  off  from  each  other.  In  their 
more  elemental  phases  they  may  be  most  vitally  related  and 
difficult  to  distinguish  from  each  other.  For  example,  the 
emotions  and  the  will  seem  clearly  separated,  yet  a  close  analysis 
of  their  origins  reveals  indistinguishable  likenesses  and  real 
relations.  Again  some  forms  of  memory  seem  absolutely  differ- 
ent from  some  forms  of  imagination,  but  we  have  seen  how 
difficult  it  is  to  distinguish  them  in  their  origins.  In  fact  is  this 
not  true  in  the  material  world?  Man  is  clearly  different  from 
a  tree,  but  how  about  the  simplest  plants  and  the  simplest 
animals  ?  Who  can  tell  absolutely  the  difference  between  vege- 
table and  mineral  substances? 

As  in  the  material  world  it  becomes  convenient  to  separate 
objects  into  groups  for  analysis,  so  in  the  mental  world  we  find 
it  convenient  to  arrange  the  diverse  activities  into  groups  of 
"faculties,"  or  powers,  or  processes,  or  whatever  we  may  con- 
ventionally designate  them.  But  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING  589 

no  phase  of  mental  life  exists  alone.  If  this  idea  of  diversity 
in  unity  is  thoroughly  comprehended,  we  are  then  prepared  to 
understand  that  this  chapter  is  not  our  first  consideration  of  the 
process  of  thinking.  This  is  merely  the  first  time  we  are  to 
select  and  isolate  for  special  consideration  certain  characteristics 
which  serve  to  differentiate  higher  thinking  from  other  processes. 

Higher  Phases  of  Thinking. — While  it  has  been  maintained 
that  thinking  is  a  very  elemental  process,  yet  it  should  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  the  examples  mentioned  represent  only 
very  crude  forms  of  thinking.  The  advanced  stages  of  thought 
involve  abstraction  of  a  high  degree,  besides  the  formation  of 
logical  concepts,  deliberate  judgment,  and  reasoning.  This  last 
process  means  the  careful  weighing  and  sifting  of  concepts  and 
the  formation  of  newer  and  higher  concepts.  Both  analysis  and 
synthesis  are  employed  to  a  higher  degree.  The  attention  must 
be  fixed  upon  each  of  the  possible  relations  and  then  upon  the 
relation  expressing  the  conclusion. 

Dewey  has  constructed  the  following  definition,  but  we  must 
keep  in  mind  that  it  is  the  higher  forms  of  thinking  to  which  it 
applies.  He  says:  "Thinking  may  be  defined  as  knowledge  o] 
universal  elements;  that  is,  o]  ideas  as  such,  or  of  relations.  In 
thinking,  the  mind  is  not  confined,  as  in  perception  or  memory, 
to  the  particular  object  or  event,  whether  present  or  past.  It 
has  to  do,  not  with  this  man  whom  I  see,  or  the  one  I  saw  yester- 
day, but  with  the  idea  of  man;  an  idea  which  cannot  be  referred 
to  any  definite  place  or  time;  which  is,  therefore,  general  or 
universal  in  its  nature.  Its  closest  connection  is  with  imagina- 
tion, which  deals  with  the  general  element  in  the  form  of  a 
particular  concrete  image,  but  in  imagination  the  emphasis  is 
upon  this  particular  form,  while  in  thinking  the  particular  form 
is  neglected  in  behalf  of  the  universal  content.  We  do  not 
imagine  man  in  general;  we  imagine  some  characteristic  man, 
Othello,  King  Arthur,  etc.  We  cannot  think  a  particular  man; 
we  think  man  in  general;  that  is,  those  universal  qualities  com- 
mon to  all  men — the  class  qualities."  * 

1  Psychology,  p.  202. 


590  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Sully  writes:1  "The  intellectual  operations  hitherto  consid- 
ered have  had  to  do  with  the  concrete,  that  is  to  say,  the  pres- 
entations of  the  senses,  and  the  representations  formed  on  the 
models  of  these.  To  perceive,  to  remember,  and  to  imagine 
have  reference  to  some  particular  object,  as  the  river  Thames, 
or  a  particular  occurrence,  as  the  coronation  of  the  German 
emperor  in  1871,  in  its  concrete  fulness  as  it  presents  itself  or 
would  present  itself  to  our  senses.  But  we  may  reflect  on  some 
one  attribute  of  these,  as  the  movement,  or  the  width  of  the 
river,  or  the  splendor  of  this  particular  ceremony;  and  we  may 
reason  about  rivers  or  ceremonies  in  general.  When  we  do 
thus  separate  out  for  special  consideration  particular  attributes 
or  aspects  of  concrete  things,  and  consider  things  in  their  rela- 
tion to  other  things,  and  to  deal  with  them  as  generalities,  we 
are  said  to  think." 

Huxley,  that  wonderful  past  master  in  the  highest  forms  of 
critical  thinking,  said:  "Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  think?  It 
is  to  still  the  voices  of  revery  and  sentiment,  and  the  inclinations 
of  nature,  and  to  listen  to  the  language  of  reason;  it  is  to  analyze 
and  discriminate;  it  is  to  ask  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  things, 
to  estimate  them  at  their  real  worth,  and  to  give  them  their 
proper  names;  it  is  to  distinguish  between  what  is  of  opinion 
and  what  is  of  speculation — what  of  reason  and  inference,  and 
what  of  fancy  and  imagination;  it  is  to  give  the  true  and  the  false 
their  respective  value;  it  is  to  lay  down  a  clearly  denned  line 
between  what  is  of  true  science  and  what  is  of  surmise  and  con- 
jecture; it  is  to  know  where  one's  knowledge  ends  and  where 
one's  ignorance  begins;  above  all,  it  is  to  arrive  at  that  condition 
of  mind  in  which  one  can  determine  how  and  when  to  express 
what  he  knows,  and  in  which  one  performs  the  more  difficult  task 
of  abstaining  from  speaking  about  that  of  which  he  knows 
nothing." 

Importance  of  Effective  Thinking. — The  school  should  train 
the  pupil  to  think,  and  to  think  effectively.  That  is,  it  should 
free  the  child  from  superstition,  it  should  train  him  to  weigh 

1  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  259. 


THE  NATURE   OF  THINKING  591 

authorities,  not  to  accept  things  dogmatically.  It  should  train 
him  to  form  conclusions  from  given  data.  These  conclusions 
should  be  just  such,  and  only  such,  as  are  warranted  by  the  facts 
in  hand.  Some  people  form  no  conclusions  at  all  for  themselves. 
They  never  dare  assert  opinions  unless  others  bear  them  com- 
pany. They  arc  largely  echoes  of  other  people.  Still  others  form 
opinions,  but  too  hastily,  the  conclusions  not  being  based  on  evi- 
dence and  unwarranted  by  the  facts.  Both  these  tendencies  must 
be  overcome.  There  is  the  child  who  repeats  only  what  the 
book  says,  and  again  the  child  who  is  continually  talking  without 
thinking.  Both  of  these  classes  may  be  helped  by  careful  atten- 
tion in  requiring  them  to  be  judicial.  One  needs  to  be  pushed 
into  the  water  to  be  shown  that  he  can  swim,  and  the  other  needs 
to  be  restrained  from  jumping  into  the  whirlpools. 

Independence  in  Thinking. — Independence  in  thinking  is  a 
rare  but  thoroughly  economical  mode  of  activity.  Many  people 
are  so  unused  to  thinking  for  themselves  that  they  would  be 
frightened  at  the  appearance  in  consciousness  of  a  thought  really 
their  own.  It  has  been  said  that  "animals  think  not  at  all  and 
some  men  a  little."  Most  of  the  effective  thinking  of  the  world 
is  carried  on  by  a  relatively  small  number  of  individuals.  The 
rest  of  the  world  are  mere  echoists.  This  is  a  terribly  wasteful 
process,  and  sinful.  There  are  hundreds  of  every-day  illustra- 
tions which  prove  that  many  people  do  very  little  independent 
thinking.  The  majority  of  voters  cast  their  ballot  for  the  same 
party  as  their  fathers  belonged  to,  or  allow  themselves  to  be 
dictated  to  by  a  few  political  bosses.  Multitudes  of  people 
regulate  their  conduct,  their  business,  and  their  speech  entirely 
by  other  people's  thoughts.  Their  conclusions  are  all  second- 
hand and  give  evidence  of  great  mustiness.  If  one  doubts  the 
force  of  tradition  just  let  him  try  to  secure  some  reform  in  any 
direction  he  pleases.  A  new  measure  is  at  once  regarded  with 
suspicion  simply  because  no  one  ever  knew  of  that  before.  Every 
new  idea  proposed  for  the  schools  is  at  once  branded  by  the 
masses  as  a  "fad." 

Millions  of  gallons  of  patent  medicines  containing  alcohol  and 


592  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

opiates  as  the  chief  ingredients  are  sold  annually.  Thousands 
of  babies  are  stupefied  by  being  dosed  with  "soothing  syrups" 
containing  opiates.  It  is  no  wonder  that  so  many  children  grow 
up  stupid.  The  "quiet"  produced  by  the  opiates  sometimes 
persists  through  life.  Hygienic  rules  which  common-sense 
should  teach  every  one  are  ever  being  ignorantly  disobeyed. 
The  history  of  medicine  is  replete  with  illustrations  of  the  influ- 
ence of  charms,  incantations,  and  fetichisms.  Even  to-day  the 
masses  can  be  wheedled  into  absurd  notions  concerning  med- 
icinal values.  Let  some  one  announce  a  "vegetable  remedy," 
or  still  better  an  "Indian  vegetable  remedy,"  or  a  "vegetable 
remedy  discovered  by  a  missionary  or  an  Egyptian,"  and  it  at 
once  has  millions  of  throats  open  to  receive  it. 

When  Columbus  asserted  that  the  earth  was  spherical  people 
scouted  the  idea,  and  when  he  passed  through  the  streets 
jeered  at  him  as  being  an  insane  man.  Had  they  not  evidence 
through  their  own  senses  that  disproved  such  a  crazy  theory  as 
he  proposed?  A  little  later  Galileo,  Copernicus,  and  Bruno 
shocked  the  world  by  asserting  that  not  the  earth  but  the  sun 
is  the  centre  of  the  universe.  They  were  not  only  scorned  but 
Bruno  was  burned  at  the  stake  because  he  would  not  retract, 
and  Galileo,  after  bitter  persecution,  was  made  to  swear  that 
he  had  never  believed  such  blasphemous  doctrines.  Could  the 
people  not  see  with  their  own  eyes  ?  The  sun  rose  every  morn- 
ing and  set  every  night  after  travelling  round  the  earth.  Various 
conjectures  were  rife  as  to  what  it  did  during  the  darkened  half 
of  the  day,  but  of  its  course  during  the  other  hours  and  of  its 
relation  to  the  earth  they  were  positive.  Could  they  not  believe 
their  own  senses?  And  Aristotle  had  never  mentioned  such  a 
preposterous  proposition.  Munroe1  writes  that  "during  this 
long  period  .  .  .  the  dry  formalism  and  dead  conning  of  words 
.  .  .  led,  inevitably,  to  the  dreary  hootings  of  scholasticism. 
This  owlish  learning,  growing  more  outrageous  as  its  metaphys- 
ics became  more  absurdly  deep,  soon  lost  all  point  of  contact 
with  humanity.  Its  husks  of  syllogism  drove  all  appetite  for 

1  The  Educational  Ideal,  p.  9. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING  593 

real  learning  from  the  mind  of  the  student,  and  he  contented 
himself,  ignorant  of  better  intellectual  food,  with  a  smattering 
of  Latin,  a  jargon  of  philosophy." 

Superstitions  and  signs  have  by  no  means  all  belonged  to  a 
by-gone  age.  Why  does  the  horseshoe  hang  over  so  many  doors  ? 
Why  do  so  many  people  hesitate  to  begin  a  journey  or  a  new 
piece  of  work  on  Friday?  Why  do  fewer  steamships  start  on 
Friday  than  any  other  day,  if  they  can  get  plenty  of  passengers 
for  Friday?  Recently  I  met  a  man  carrying  a  rattlesnake's 
tail  in  his  hat-band.  On  inquiry  I  found  that  he  did  this  to  ward 
off  rheumatism!  He  firmly  believed  in  the  efficiency  of  the 
senseless  process.  Why  do  farmers  plant  their  potatoes  in  the 
new  of  the  moon  and  some  other  crops  in  the  old  of  the  moon? 
Why  do  they  consult  the  almanac  before  slaughtering  a  beef  or 
weaning  a  lamb?  To-day  happens  to  be  "ground-hog  day" 
and  thousands  of  people  are  pinning  their  faith  in  the  remaining 
winter  weather  upon  the  supposed  action  of  the  innocent  little 
creature.  I  recently  heard  a  man  say,  "The  winter  has  been 
so  cold,  we  shall  have  an  early  spring."  A  little  applied  knowl- 
edge of  the  convertibility  of  heat  into  other  forms  of  energy 
would  teach  that  there  is  no  necessary  truth  in  his  statement. 

The  School  Should  Train  to  Think. — The  school  can  perform 
no  higher  function  than  to  teach  independence  in  thinking.  Un- 
fortunately, as  many  schools  are  conducted,  everything  tends  to 
beget  dependence.  The  child  finds  himself  in  a  realm  of  mys- 
terious, meaningless  symbols,  strange  customs,  and  arbitrary 
rules  and  regulations  for  his  conduct,  and  is  forthwith  made  to 
feel  that  all  must  be  learned  and  accepted  unquestioningly.  As 
he  progresses  he  finds  words  without  significance  which  he  must 
pronounce,  read,  and  spell.  Rules  in  arithmetic  and  grammar 
are  forced  upon  him  to  be  mechanically  memorized  without 
illumination;  long  strings  of  dates,  names  of  kings,  queens, 
dynasties,  battles,  and  generals  must  be  recited  and  called 
history;  names  of  capes,  bays,  rivers,  and  mountains,  which 
have  only  location  must  be  committed,  etc.  Most  of  this  is 
without  a  glimmering  of  meaning  or  a  particle  of  interest  in  the 


594  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

content  on  the  part  of  the  learner.  The  child  early  learns  by 
imitation  to  accept  the  husks  of  knowledge  and  to  produce  the 
certificates  for  real  knowledge  when  called  on  to  recite.  Instead 
of  continuing  in  a  questioning  attitude  he  learns  that  the  line 
of  least  resistance  is  to  take  everything  ready-made.  Dewey 
remarks  that  "what  is  primarily  required  is  first-hand  experi- 
ence. Until  recently  the  school  has  literally  been  dressed  out 
with  hand-me-down  garments,  with  intellectual  suits  which 
other  people  have  worn." 

Although  it  is  the  utmost  pedantry  to  expect  the  child  to  be 
a  discoverer  or  an  inventor  of  knowledge,  new  and  valuable  to 
the  world,  yet  he  must  be  led  through  the  established  truths  in 
the  "course"  in  such  a  way  that  it  shall  possess  interest,  ration- 
ality, and  meaning  for  him.  Many  truths  he  can  and  should 
be  led  purposively  to  discover  by  himself  and  for  himself — not 
for  the  world — and  what  you  point  out  to  him  should  be  under- 
stood and  full  of  interest.  Of  course  in  so  doing  he  will  not 
make  independent  discoveries.  But  you  will  have  supplied  the 
conditions  which  it  may  have  taken  the  world  ages  to  discover, 
and  the  child  will  now  perceive  the  relations  and  the  results. 
With  all  the  rule-of-thumb  exercises,  the  parrot  memorizing,  and 
the  dogmatic  statements  which  the  child  finds  at  school,  it  is 
little  wonder  that  he  forgets  that  he  has  ideas  of  his  own  when 
school  questions  are  under  consideration,  even  though  he  is 
ultra-independent  on  the  diamond  or  the  gridiron  and  among 
his  fellows.  Coleridge  says:  "To  educate  is  to  train  to  think, 
for  by  active  thinking  alone  is  knowledge  attained.  Without 
active  thought  we  cannot  get  beyond  mere  belief,  for  to  pass 
from  belief  to  knowledge  means  to  sift  and  weigh  evidence  for 
oneself.  .  .  .  Alas,"  he  exclaims  further,  "how  many  examples 
are  now  present  to  my  memory,  of  young  men  the  most  anx- 
iously and  expensively  be-school-mastered,  be-tutored,  be-lect- 
ured,  anything  but  educated;  who  have  received  arms  and  am- 
munition, instead  of  skill,  strength,  and  courage;  varnished  rather 
than  polished;  perilously  over-civilized,  and  most  pitiably  un- 
cultivated! And  all  from  inattention  to  the  method  dictated 


THE  NATURE   OF  THINKING  595 

by  nature  herself,  to  the  simple  truth,  that  as  the  forms  in  all 
organized  existence,  so  must  all  true  and  living  knowledge  pro- 
ceed from  within;  that  it  may  be  trained,  supported,  fed,  excited, 
but  can  never  be  infused  or  impressed."  1 

Inexact  Use  of  Language. — It  is  difficult  for  the  average  person 
to  do  much  abstract  and  sustained  thinking.  There  is  appar- 
ently an  inertia  of  mind  to  be  overcome  in  order  to  do  real 
thinking.  The  mind  becomes  habituated  to  acting  in  certain 
fixed  channels.  This  is  rendered  more  probable  on  account  of 
stereotyped  language  forms.  We  sometimes  think  we  are  ex- 
pressing ideas  when  we  are  using  only  the  symbols.  If  we  exam- 
ine our  oral  speech  we  are  surprised  at  the  great  number  of 
common  stereotyped  expressions.  We  deal  largely  in  currency 
of  the  denominations  stamped  by  popular  usage  and  rarely  pay 
in  original,  independently  coined  denominations.  Let  any  one 
attempt  a  description  and  see  how  largely  he  uses  habitual 
expressions.  In  a  great  measure  our  language  comes  to  us 
ready-made  and  most  people  use  many  words  and  expressions 
with  very  indefinite  notions  of  the  meanings.  Creighton  says: 
"The  only  way  in  wrhich  we  can  be  saved  from  becoming  'intel- 
lectual dead-beats,'  is  by  the  formation  of  good  mental  habits. 
It  requires  eternal  vigilance  and  unceasing  strenuousness  to 
prevent  our  degeneration  into  mere  associative  machines." : 
Bacon  writes:  "Men  imagine  that  their  reason  governs  words, 
whilst,  in  fact,  words  react  upon  the  understanding."  3  That 
noble  and  painstaking  pioneer  in  critical  thinking,  John  Locke, 
writes  on  the  confusion  of  words  with  ideas:  "Men  having  been 
accustomed  from  their  cradles  to  learn  words  which  are  easily 
got  and  retained,  before  they  knew  or  formed  the  complex  ideas 
to  which  they  were  annexed,  or  which  were  to  be  found  in  the 
things  they  were  thought  to  stand  for,  they  usually  continue 
to  do  so  all  their  lives;  and  without  taking  the  pains  necessary 
to  settle  in  their  minds  determined  ideas,  they  use  the. '  words 

1  Quoted  by  Wclton,  The  Logical  Bases  oj  Education,  p.  252 
3  An  Introductory  Logic,  p.  245. 
3  Novum  Organum,  Aph.  LIX. 


596  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

for  such  unsteady  and  confused  notions  as  they  have,  contenting 
themselves  with  the  same  words  other  people  use,  as  if  their  very 
sound  necessarily  carried  with  it  constantly  the  same  meaning. 
.  .  .  This  inconsistency  in  men's  words  when  they  come  to 
reason  concerning  their  tenets  or  their  interest,  manifestly  fills 
their  discourse  with  abundance  of  unintelligible  noise  and  jargon, 
especially  in  moral  matters.  .  .  .  Men  take  the  words  they  find 
in  use  among  their  neighbors;  and,  that  they  may  not  seem 
ignorant  what  they  stand  for,  use  them  confidently,  without  much 
troubling  their  heads  about  a  certain  fixed  meaning."  *  Creigh- 
ton  shows  us  that  phrases  like  " class  legislation,"  "sound 
money,"  "the  people's  cause,"  "liberty,"  "justice,"  "equality," 
etc.,  are  frequently  used  in  a  very  indefinite  way.  "A  man  may 
easily  deceive  himself,  and,  as  he  repeats  familiar  words  and 
phrases,  imagine  himself  to  be  overflowing  with  patriotism,  or 
with  sympathy  for  others,  or  with  religious  feelings."  2 

Habits  and  Effective  Thinking. — It  is  important  for  the  student 
to  understand  early  the  force  and  value  of  habit.  Much  time  is 
lost  by  every  one  of  us  because  our  early  training  did  not  render 
automatic  all  those  activities  that  we  have  to  perform  constantly 
and  in  the  same  way.  Purely  mechanical  work  can  be  controlled 
more  economically  by  lower  nervous  centres  than  by  higher.  In 
childhood  and  youth  the  nervous  system  is  plastic,  a  prime  con- 
dition for  memorizing  and  fixing  habits.  Among  the  habits  that 
should  become  ingrained  during  this  period  are  those  of  correct 
bodily  postures  and  activities,  correct  speech,  the  multiplication- 
table,  spelling,  writing,  those  involved  in  learning  to  speak  foreign 
languages,  etc.  Most  habits  are  controlled  by  the  spinal  cord 
which  is  early  developed.  Hence  we  should  form  habits  early 
so  that  the  brain  may  be  relieved  later  of  mechanical  work  and 
be  concerned  with  higher  operations.  As  Dr.  Balliet  has 
observed:  "At  first  a  child  uses  his  brain  in  walking,  later  he 
can  walk  from  habit  and  walks  therefore  with  his  spinal  cord. 
As  first  we  spell  with  painful  consciousness,  later  we  spell  familiar 

1  Essay  Concerning  the  Human  Understanding,  book  III,  chap.  10. 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  248. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINKING  597 

words  of  our  vocabulary  with  little  or  no  consciousness.  Chil- 
dren ought  to  be  trained  to  write  and  spell  mainly  with  the  spinal 
cord,  and  to  use  all  their  brain-power  in  thinking  the  thoughts 
to  be  expressed.  We  do  many  things  with  the  spinal  cord  to 
relieve  the  brain.  We  walk  with  the  cord,  we  write  and  spell 
with  the  cord;  I  suppose  we  knit  and  gossip  with  the  spinal 
cord;  indeed  we  may  sing  and  pray,  not  with  our  hearts,  nor 
with  our  brains,  but  with  the  upper  part  of  our  spinal  cord.  We 
tip  our  hats  to  each  other,  not  with  our  brains,  but  mainly  with 
our  spinal  cord;  when  we  meet  people  whom  we  do  not  wish  to 
see,  we  often  shake  hands  mechanically  with  our  spinal  cord- 
hence  we  speak  of  a  'cordial  welcome.'" 

Not  only  do  these  elementary  physical  activities  become  auto- 
matic, but  also  processes  of  judging  and  reasoning  must  become 
largely  mechanical  before  becoming  serviceable.  One's  think- 
ing is  largely  specialized  and  judgment  outside  of  the  well- 
beaten  track  of  thinking  is  not  very  valuable.  The  lawyer's 
opinion  concerning  disease  is  slowly  formed  and  unreliable; 
the  doctor's  judgment  about  legal  matters  likewise  is  valueless. 
The  expert  in  a  given  line  is  one  who  has  studied  widely  and 
who  can  form  instantaneous  judgments  because  of  the  habitual 
consideration  of  the  data.  Difficult  studies  pursued  through  a 
long  time  until  mastery  is  complete  become  simple  as  the  alpha- 
bet. Mathematicians  become  so  familiar  with  the  calculus  that 
they  read  it  for  recreation  when  fatigued  with  other  work.  The 
lawyer  can  instantly  cite  scores  of  cases  and  precedents  for  which 
the  tyro  would  have  required  hours  to  summon  to  the  foreground 
of  consciousness.  Hence,  when  knowledge  is  to  become  usable 
it  must  be  pondered  long  and  every  detail  absolutely  appropri- 
ated. To  arrange  work  in  such  a  way  as  to  sustain  interest 
through  variety  and  at  the  same  time  dwell  upon  it  until 
thoroughly  comprehended  and  appropriated  is  high  teaching 
art.  The  demands  for  variety  frequently  allure  to  new  fields 
before  assimilation  has  been  effected. 

I  wonder  if  there  is  not  much  in  modern  student  life  that 
militates  against  the  deepest  thinking.  With  the  multiplication 


598  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

of  student  activities,  of  themselves  in  no  way  secondary  to  any 
others  in  importance,  have  not  the  opportunities  for  sequestered 
contemplation  decreased?  With  foot-ball,  base-ball,  basket- 
ball, tennis,  rowing,  skating,  the  literary  society,  the  dramatic 
club,  the  freshman  banquet,  the  sophomore  cotillion,  the  junior 
"prom,"  the  senior  "hop";  the  numberless  fraternity,  sorority, 
and  various  house  parties;  the  church,  social,  and  other  en- 
gagements, besides  the  loafing  hour,  the  theatre,  concert,  spe- 
cial lectures  galore,  the  newspapers  and  magazines  to  scan,  the 
letters  to  write  home  and  other  places,  applications  for  schools 
to  make,  etc.,  one  might  well  exclaim:  "And  when  do  they  find 
time  to  study?"  In  ancient  times  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  the 
scholars  shut  themselves  away  from  the  world,  quiet  as  it  was, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  distractions  against  thinking.  While  they 
erred  in  not  recognizing  that  the  senses  are  the  source  of  all 
knowledge,  were  they  not  wise  in  recognizing  that  to  think 
effectively  demands  solitude? 

Many  students  take  on  altogether  too  many  activities.  In 
my  own  observation  I  have  known  several  students  who  arrested 
their  development  badly  by  getting  too  many  irons  in  the  fire. 
A  student's  popularity  is  not  infrequently  the  cause  of  his  intel- 
lectual arrest.  By  attempting  debates,  athletics,  dramatics, 
study,  and  society  all  at  the  same  time,  his  energies  are  dissipated, 
his  growth  stunted,  while  his  plodding  companion  by  everlast- 
ingly keeping  at  a  few  things  finally  becomes  a  master  and 
frequently  astonishes  even  himself  as  well  as  his  acquaintances. 
Even  short  courses  with  too  much  variety,  except  for  inspiration, 
are  uneconomical  because  they  do  not  lay  permanent  founda- 
tions. Too  many  open  lecture  courses  provided  by  faculties 
may  easily  be  distracting  and  a  source  of  dissipation.  The 
student  must  learn  to  say  no  to  the  siren's  voice  which  contin- 
ually beckons  him  on  to  new  fields. 

I  sometimes  feel  that  there  ought  to  be  some  course  labelled 
"thinking"  in  which  the  individual  should  be  isolated  from 
everybody  long  enough  to  really  empty  his  mind  of  all  ideas 
which  are  merely  echoes,  and  then  to  discern  what  are  really 


THE  NATURE   OF  THINKING  599 

his  own.  With  all  the  distraction  of  congested  social  life,  the 
time  may  come  when  it  would  be  a  blessing  for  the  State  to 
imprison  a  few  great  men  each  year  and  allow  them  only  pen, 
ink,  and  paper.  It  may  have  been  a  fortunate  thing  for  the 
world  that  John  Bunyan  languished  in  prison  until  his  thoughts 
had  time  to  germinate  and  come  to  full  fruition.  Possibly  the 
blind  Milton,  shut  away  from  the  distractions  of  visual  stimuli, 
may  have  looked  within  and  discovered  thoughts  struggling  for 
expression,  but  stifled  with  the  ephemeral  ideas  of  sense  per- 
ception. 

While  we  are  rightly  emphasizing  group  activities  as  an  aid  in 
developing  altruism,  I  wonder  whether  students  do  not  some- 
times misinterpret  its  meaning.  Self-activity  is  fundamental  in 
the  process  of  acquisition  of  knowledge.  No  knowledge  is  of 
much  value  that  is  not  made  one's  own  personal  possession. 
This  means  more  than  the  recital  of  words  and  formulas  gained 
from  books  and  companions.  In  their  desire  to  be  helpful,  I 
sometimes  see  students  in  groups,  even  sitting  on  the  stairways 
where  the  crowds  are  passing,  believing  they  are  studying  together. 
When  one  hears  the  bits  of  gossip  interspersed  between  the  formu- 
las, the  declensions,  and  historical  dates  one  wonders  where  the 
calm  reflection,  deep  concentration,  analysis,  comparison,  doubt, 
contemplation,  deliberation,  complete  abstraction,  enter  in. 
An  over-social  room-mate  who  persists  in  retailing  the  gossip  of 
the  day  during  the  hour  set  apart  for  study  is  an  uneconomical 
acquisition.  Psychology  has  thoroughly  demonstrated  that  we 
can  consciously  attend  economically  to  only  one  set  of  ideas  at 
a  time.  Even  much  note-taking  in  class  is  an  uneconomical 
distraction.  The  faithful  but  misguided  student  frequently 
attempts  to  take  down  every  word  uttered.  He  deceives  himself, 
for,  what  he  hopes  to  carry  under  his  arm,  he  should  have  in  his 
head.  No  wonder  that  sometimes  the  less  scrupulous  one  who 
cuts  class  and  borrows  notes  instead  of  writing  them  fares  about 
as  well. 

In  student  life  it  is  important  to  thoroughly  master  a  task  as 
speedily  as  possible.  To  skim  over  a  lesson  and  leave  it  without 


600  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

mastery  is  wasteful.  The  process  may  be  repeated  a  dozen 
times  in  this  way  and  then  be  only  half  learned.  Hence,  "what- 
soever thou  findest  to  do,  do  it  with  all  thy  mind  and  with  all 
thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  strength." 

May  I  say  a  word  on  the  ethics  of  cramming  for  examinations  ? 
The  method  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  Ideas  are  not  grasped, 
associations  are  not  made,  brain  tracks  are  not  made  permanent, 
and  even  though  the  student  might  pass  an  examination  on  such 
possessions,  like  the  notes  of  an  insolvent  bank  they  are  found 
to  be  worthless  trash  when  put  to  real  use.  Instead  of  wisdom 
more  to  be  prized  than  fine  gold,  such  a  process  may  leave  one 
with  only  bogus  certificates.  Make  your  mental  acquisitions 
absolutely  your  own  while  going  over  the  subject  day  by  day, 
take  ten  hours  of  sleep  before  every  examination  day,  and  the 
results  need  not  be  feared.  In  trying  to  gain  possessions  most 
economically  and  to  make  them  most  permanent,  I  give  fre- 
quently the  following  recipe:  Study  your  lesson  as  if  you  ex- 
pected to  teach  it.  When  you  can  teach  it  to  some  one  else  you 
possess  it.  Frequently  actually  try  to  teach  your  lesson.  If  your 
room-mate  will  not  submit,  inflict  it  upon  an  imaginary  pupil. 
Some  one  said:  "I  do  not  lecture  to  instruct  others,  but  to  clear 
up  my  own  ideas."  l 

1  See  The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  vol.  LXXI,  September,  1907,  where 
several  of  the  preceding  paragraphs  were  first  published  by  the  writer  under  the 
title  "Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Mental  Economy." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION 

Importance  of  the  Concept  or  Universal  Truth. — It  has  been 
well  stated  by  McMurry  that  the  concept  is  the  goal  of  all 
instruction.  This  is  true  if  we  bear  in  mind  as  McMurry  has 
done  that  there  are  moral  truths  as  well  as  intellectual,  and  that 
all  worthy  truths  should  result  in  influencing  action.  Isolated 
percepts  and  detached  facts  are  valuable  only  in  so  far  as  they 
form  a  nucleus  or  matrix  out  of  which  universal  truths  are 
evolved.  Too  much  of  teaching  deals  with  unrelated  facts  and 
symbols  of  facts  which  do  not  lead  to  the  production  of  instru- 
ments (the  concepts)  whereby  new  cases  can  be  dealt  with.  The 
solution  of  a  particular  example  in  arithmetic  is  of  no  value 
unless  it  leads  to  the  formation  of  a  rule  whereby  others  of  a 
similar  nature  may  be  analyzed  and  solved.  A  particular  ex- 
periment in  physics  or  chemistry  may  be  interesting,  but  unless 
it  illustrates  some  principle  or  law  it  is  of  no  great  value.  No 
great  progress  in  foreign  languages,  or  in  the  mother  tongue,  for 
that  matter,  could  be  made  did  not  the  learner  arrive  (not  neces- 
sarily consciously)  at  laws  and  principles  which  are  of  general 
application.  Even  the  child  that  says  "I  runncd  down  the  hill" 
has  arrived  at  several  general  principles,  one  of  which  at  least 
has  exceptions.  However,  his  mistake  arises  out  of  his  correct 
application  of  a  law  which  he  has  learned. 

Psychological  Meaning  of  the  Concept. — If  conceptual  think- 
ing is  so  important  in  teaching  then  it  will  be  valuable  for 
teachers  to  study  carefully  the  meaning  of  the  concept  and  the 
modes  of  promoting  its  formation.  The  concept  differs  from 
the  percept  in  many  important  respects.  The  percept  is  partic- 
ular, concrete,  and  in  consciousness  only  when  the  object  is 

601 


602  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

present  to  the  senses.  A  concrete  and  specific  copy  of  the  percept 
is  an  image.  When  percepts  of  several  individuals  of  the  same 
class  of  objects  have  been  received  or  when  several  separate 
percepts  of  the  same  thing  have  been  received  we  gain  a  sort 
of  composite  image — something  like  a  composite  photograph. 
This  has  been  termed  a  generic  image  or  a  recept.  Percepts 
and  images  are  ideas  of  individual  things;  are  specific  and  con- 
crete. The  concept  is  an  idea  of  a  class.  It  deals  with  universals. 
The  concepts  of  chair  or  house  do  not  refer  to  particular  chairs 
or  houses,  but  to  the  classes  of  objects.  When  we  think  chair 
conceptually  we  are  not  concerned  with  a  big  chair  or  a  little 
one,  a  dining-chair  or  a  rocker,  an  oak  chair  or  one  of  mahog- 
any. When  we  have  a  concept  of  animal  we  do  not  think  of  a 
cat  or  a  dog,  a  white  animal  or  a  black  one,  a  ferocious  one  or 
a  docile  one.  In  all  conceptual  thinking  the  characteristics 
common  to  the  class  are  included.  As  soon  as  we  turn  to  some 
particular  individual  of  the  class  we  must  think  in  terms  of  per- 
cepts or  of  images.  The  concept,  however,  cannot  be  imaged. 

We  must  guard  against  the  idea  that  a  concept  relates  to 
material  objects  only  or  even  that  it  is  always  represented  by 
a  noun.  There  are  just  as  truly  concepts  of  actions  or  relations. 
The  predicate,  as  well  as  the  subject,  in  any  sentence  expresses 
a  conceptual  idea.  The  same  is  true  of  every  other  element  or 
part  of  speech.  To  understand  the  expression  "The  ink  flows 
freely  from  my  pen,"  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  understand  the 
denotation  and  the  connotation  of  "flows"  as  of  ink  or  pen. 
Similarly  the  prepositional  phrase  "from  my  pen"  can  only  be 
understood  through  the  universal  idea  compounded  from  the 
many  individual  ideas  that  were  first  known  through  experience. 
Laws  in  physics  and  chemistry,  rules  in  arithmetic  and  algebra, 
definitions  in  grammar,  are  all  expressions  of  conceptual  ideas. 
They  do  not  necessarily  represent  concepts  in  the  child  mind. 
If  he  has  begun  with  the  definitions,  rules,  and  laws  and  learned 
them  verbatim,  they  do  not  stand  for  clear,  definite,  enlarged 
relational  ideas.  They  are  mere  words,  the  counters  of  realities 
and  not  the  realities.  But  if  the  elements  connoted  in  the 


THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION  603 

expressions  have  been  experientially  known,  their  relations  ap- 
prehended, and  the  whole  knit  together  into  a  product  which 
gives  a  new  background  for  all  subsequent  experiences,  then 
we  may  say  that  the  concept  has  been  experienced.  In  natural 
science  the  learner  must  through  classification  of  ideas  be  con- 
tinually forming  concepts,  not  only  of  objects  but  of  their  mani- 
fold relations.  These  concepts  must  be  ever  subject  to  modifi- 
cation and  revision  through  new  experiences. 

Genetic  View  of  the  Concept. — It  should  be  clearly  understood 
that  a  concept  is  not  a  psychical  product  with  a  fixed  value  or 
content.  When  one  gets  a  concept  of  a  given  object  he  has  not 
exactly  the  same  idea  as  some  one  else  who  has  a  concept  des- 
ignated by  the  same  name.  The  child's  idea  of  horse  is,  for 
example,  very  different  from  the  one  possessed  by  the  farmer, 
the  veterinarian,  the  jockey,  or  the  zoologist.  In  fact,  each  of 
these  will  have  different  ideas  included  in  the  concept.  The 
jockey  has  all  the  fine  racing  points  of  the  horse  in  his  idea,  while 
the  zoologist  thinks  of  the  place  in  the  animal  scale  to  which  the 
horse  belongs.  A  given  concept  also  changes  in  the  mind  of 
the  same  individual  according  to  his  experiences.  One's  child- 
hood concept  of  a  given  thing  is  very  different  from  his  concept 
of  the  same  thing  when  he  becomes  an  adult.  For  example, 
a  child  is  given  a  book  containing  pictures;  he  thereupon  marks 
off  that  object  from  others  and  isolates  it  as  a  class.  But  as  the 
years  go  by,  if  rightly  schooled,  he  gradually  enlarges  his  idea  of 
book.  He  learns  of  the  different  bindings,  different  sizes,  vary- 
ing print,  and  more  important  for  the  idea  of  book,  he  learns  of 
the  different  types  of  books  judged  by  the  contents.  He  finds 
that  there  are  story  books,  reading  books,  arithmetics,  gram- 
mars, histories,  geographies,  dictionaries,  encyclopedias;  books 
of  fiction,  travel,  biography,  and  others  in  wonderful  profusion. 
One's  idea  of  book  is  never  complete,  but  with  the  student  ever 
enlarging. 

How  different  the  child's  idea  of  carbon,  when  he  has  seen 
it  exemplified  only  in  a  piece  of  coal,  from  the  concept  of  the 
chemist  who  has  studied  it  in  its  manifold  relations.  Every  one 


6o4  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

thinks  he  has  a  perfect  concept  of  "home."  However,  let  one 
try  to  describe  the  homes  of  the  Cingalese,  the  Kaffirs,  the 
Comanches,  the  Hindoos,  or  a  king,  and  see  whether  he  will 
not  acknowledge  that  there  are  multitudes  of  individual  ideas 
that  could  still  be  incorporated  into  his  concept,  thereby  extend- 
ing it.  Let  the  ordinary  person  try  to  describe  his  concept  of 
oxygen  (which  word  he  would  say  he  understood  perfectly)  and 
see  how  narrow  his  concept,  and  even  how  vague.  The  one 
who  has  not  studied  chemistry  can  tell  a  little  about  oxygen. 
One  of  my  adult  students  said  he  understood  the  word,  knew 
that  the  substance  was  a  gas,  that  plants  and  animals  need  it  to 
sustain  life.  This  was  the  expression  of  a  very  crude  concept; 
one  of  very  narrow  content;  but  it  was  nevertheless  a  concept. 
Another  student  who  had  studied  chemistry  a  little  added  that 
it  was  a  constituent  of  water,  of  nitric  acid,  of  sulphuric  acid, 
and  a  few  other  acids;  that  it  was  a  colorless,  odorless,  tasteless 
gas,  and  a  few  other  facts.  This  student  had  a  little  fuller  and 
more  exact  notion  or  concept  of  the  substance.  Suppose  I  had 
called  upon  a  professor  of  chemistry  ?  What  he  could  have  told 
me  would  make  a  book.  His  concept  is  vastly  fuller  and  also 
more  exact. 

The  child's  notion  of  plants  is  one  thing,  the  botanist's 
another;  the  child  knows  only  a  few  facts  and  those  indefinitely; 
the  botanist  multitudes  of  them,  and  those  with  exactness.  The 
child  has  formed  a  few  accidental,  mechanical  associations,  for 
example,  that  all  plants  have  leaves  and  lose  them  in  the  fall; 
the  botanist  has  formed  myriads  of  thoughtful  associations 
relating  to  structure,  function,  use,  and  habitat.  The  child's 
generalizations  concerning  people  are  at  first  few  and  largely 
the  result  of  chance  associations.  As  he  grows  older  he  extends 
his  range  of  acquaintances,  discovering  different  types,  enlarging 
his  range  of  observations,  drawing  newer  conclusions,  revising 
old  ones,  thus  constantly  modifying  and  enlarging  his  concept 
of  mankind.  Before  he  becomes  a  sociologist,  a  statesman,  or 
a  leader  of  men  in  any  capacity,  his  crude  childish  notions  of 
society  must  undergo  such  transformation  and  metamorphism 


THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION  605 

that  his  specialized  adult  conceptions  will  no  longer  be  recog- 
nizable as  being  related  to  the  primitive  ones.  However,  this 
is  the  only  process  whereby  the  rich,  accurate,  and  completer 
notions  could  have  been  developed.  The  rate  of  growth  may 
be  sometimes  faster,  sometimes  slower,  but  the  stages  must  be 
passed  through.  Finished  concepts  can  never  be  borrowed 
ready-made.  They  must  grow  and  not  merely  by  accretion  of 
new  material;  but  also  by  apperceptive  integration. 

The  Curriculum  and  Concept-forming. — In  the  arrangement 
of  our  American  school  curricula  we  have  had  too  little  regard 
for  the  psychic  laws  governing  the  development  of  concepts.  We 
have  assumed  that  the  child  could  learn  all  there  is  of  a  subject 
on  the  first  presentation.  Scarcely  a  secondary  school  subject 
but  that  is  "finished"  the  same  year  it  is  begun.  Geometry, 
which  has  some  very  simple  fundamental  ideas,  is  deferred  until 
about  the  age  of  fifteen.  It  also  has  some  very  difficult  concep- 
tions and  these  are  taken  during  the  single  year,  or  year  and  a 
half,  devoted  to  it.  Genetic  psychology  teaches  us  that  it  would 
be  far  better  to  begin  the  learning  of  simple  geometric  concepts 
many  years  earlier  and  gradually  approach  the  more  difficult 
ones,  reaching  the  rigorous  "original"  exercises  and  the  most 
difficult  types  of  theorems  much  later  than  fifteen.  We  begin 
abstract  formal  grammar  when  the  child  should  be  utterly  un- 
conscious of  the  existence  of  parts  of  speech,  syntactical  rules, 
and  declensions.  Grammar  is  a  study  in  psychology,  a  study 
of  the  forms,  modes,  and  categories  of  thought.  The  child  has 
not  reached  the  age  of  serious  reflection  and  has  no  interest 
in  forms  of  thought  because  he  does  not  consciously  recognize 
them.  Language  is  to  him  merely  a  mode  of  expression.  He 
is  interested  in  its  grammar  only  in  so  far  as  he  finds  it  necessary 
to  centre  upon  it  in  noting  his  inadequacies  of  expression.  As 
an  object  of  scientific  analysis  it  is  one  of  the  branches  most 
poorly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  children.  Botany,  physics,  and 
geology  are  a  thousand  times  better  adapted  for  study  at  that 
period.  Even  these  should  not  too  early  be  made  subjects  of 
rigorous  scientific  method.  But,  it  is  still  true,  that  it  is  much 


6o6  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

easier  for  the  child  to  gain  the  concept  batrachian,  rosaceae,  and 
mollusk  than  those  of  noun,  verb,  and  especially  participle, 
infinitive,  gerund,  and  modal  adverb. 

Arrangement  of  German  and  French  Curricula. — The  German 
and  the  French  secondary  schools  are  far  superior  to  ours  in  the 
arrangement  and  distribution  of  studies.  (I  believe  we  are 
nearer  right  in  the  selection  of  the  studies.)  They  arrange  to 
have  each  study  carried  through  a  long  period  of  time.  History, 
for  example,  is  carried  through  the  entire  course  of  nine  years, 
two  or  three  hours  a  week;  natural  science  is  carried  through 
the  entire  course  from  two  to  three  hours  a  week;  mathematics 
through  the  entire  course  from  three  to  five  hours  a  week,  ac- 
cording to  the  class  of  the  school.  Latin  is  begun  in  the  fourth 
year  of  school  life  and  carried  seven  or  eight  hours  a  week  for 
nine  years.  In  mathematics  the  order  is  not  arithmetic,  algebra, 
geometry,  each  in  turn  being  finished  before  the  next  is  begun. 
Geometry  is  begun  in  the  sixth  grade  and  has  two  hours  a  week 
devoted  to  it  while  arithmetic  is  accorded  only  two.  The  next 
year  elementary  algebra  is  introduced,  literal  expressions  and 
equations  of  the  first  degree  with  one  unknown  quantity  being 
taken.  The  work  in  the  elementary  inductions  relating  to  plane 
figures  is  continued.  Arithmetic  is  not  abandoned  but  more 
difficult  work  is  given  in  ordinary  arithmetic.  The  algebra  and 
the  geometry  are  also  correlated  with  it.  In  the  ninth  grade,  or 
about  the  fifteenth  year  of  life,  logarithms  and  trigonometry  are 
begun  and  continued  as  a  part  of  the  mathematical  course  for 
four  years  more.  It  is  noticeable  that  such  topics  as  interest 
and  other  difficult  portions  of  arithmetic,  and  in  algebra  the  bi- 
nomial theorem  and  imaginaries,  are  deferred  until  the  last 
year,  which  corresponds  to  about  our  sophomore  year  in 
college. 

The  history  work  is  also  arranged  upon  the  spiral  plan.  The 
same  facts  are  re-viewed  many  times  in  the  course  from  different 
stand-points.  At  first  the  interesting  narratives  and  biographical 
data,  as  mere  facts,  are  learned.  Later  the  knowledge  of  the 
same  facts  is  extended  and  viewed  in  new  relations.  At  a  later 


THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION  607 

time  more  facts  are  added,  new  relations  studied,  classification 
of  these  facts  and  relations  made,  and  the  whole  knit  more 
firmly  together.  By  the  time  the  university  is  reached  the  stu- 
dent has  a  thorough  grasp  of  the  significance  of  the  main  facts, 
especially  of  the  history  of  classical  nations  and  of  Germany, 
and  is  then  ready  for  a  philosophic  treatment  of  the  subject. 
"The  psychological  principle  of  repetition  is  thoroughly  carried 
out  in  their  history  teaching.  The  work  begins  in  the  lowest 
grade  and  extends  to  the  highest.  They  never  feel  that  they 


FIG.  40. 

have  'finished'  the  subject.  The  same  ground  is  continually 
crossed  and  recrossed,  viewed  from  different  stand-points  and 
from  positions  where  all  can  be  surveyed;  the  relations  of  cause 
and  effect  thoroughly  studied  until  all  becomes  a  closely  and 
firmly  associated  whole.  The  entire  course  forms  a  continuous 
and  'ever  ascending  spiral  from  the  apex  of  which  an  outlook 
over  the  past  is  obtained.'  They  believe  in  learning  much  about 
a  few  things  instead  of  a  little  about  many.  In  this  lies  their 
greatest  pedagogical  strength."  l  The  system  might  equally 
well  be  characterized  as  a  system  of  concentric  circles,  in  which 
each  year  the  circle  of  thought  in  each  branch  or  topic  is  larger 
than  in  the  preceding  period.  The  accompanying  diagram 

1  Bolton,  The  Secondary  School  System  of  Germany,  p.  250. 


oo8  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

illustrates  the  plan.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  beginnings  of 
all  the  great  fields  of  knowledge  are  studied  in  the  elementary 
grades,  and  that  each  field  is  considered  in  some  phase  through- 
out the  successive  years. 

Language  and  the  Growth  of  Concepts. — There  is  an  inevitable 
functional  psycho-motor  relation  between  ideas  and  expression, 
or  between  ideas  and  language.  Consequently  it  is  important 
for  the  teacher  to  understand  the  relation  and  also  to  understand 
ways  and  means  of  affording  opportunities  for  their  correlative 
development.  If  the  relation  is  absolute  it  may  be  asked  why 
consideration  should  be  given  to  means  of  exercise  ?  In  discuss- 
ing motor  training  in  general  it  was  shown  that  reactions  need 
refining.  Although  some  reaction  is  certain  to  occur,  it  is  not 
necessarily  the  most  desirable  one.  The  amoeba  when  stimu- 
lated moves,  but  the  manner  and  direction  are  unpredictable. 
Likewise  human  beings  when  stimulated  tend  to  express  them- 
selves, but  the  uneducated  express  themselves  inadequately  and 
uneconomically.  Energy  is  diffused  instead  of  being  confined 
to  special  channels. 

Whenever  reactions  to  impressions  become  stereotyped  so  that 
a  particular  form  of  reaction  is  used  in  connection  with  a  partic- 
ular state  of  mind  or  body  there  is  language.  It  may  include 
gestures,  bodily  signs,  or  speech.  This  discussion  will  be  con- 
fined mainly  to  vocalized  speech.  Speech  is  one  of  the  most 
prominent  modes  of  ideo-motor  reactions  in  human  beings.  A 
great  multitude  of  impressions  issue  in  vocalized  speech.  Among 
civilized  adults  many  impressions  issue  in  the  form  of  written 
language.  With  the  development  of  conceptual  thinking  some 
symbols  become  necessary  as  a  means  of  mental  economy.  To 
produce  each  perception  or  individual  idea  every  time  it  needs 
consideration,  or  to  revive  even  in  concrete  imagery  every  idea 
would  be  a  tedious  process,  to  say  the  least.  Of  course,  it  is 
impossible  to  form  many  ideas  at  all  without  recourse  to  a  higher 
stage,  viz.,  abstract  thinking.  In  order  to  isolate  the  concept 
and  hold  it  before  the  mind  it  is  necessary  to  associate  some 
symbol  or  ticket  with  it  which  will  make  it  stand  out  clearly 


THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION  609 

and  also  bind  together  the  salient  features.  This  is  found  in 
words,  signs,  symbols,  formulas,  etc. 

At  first  the  word  has  a  limited  meaning,  standing  for  a  single 
class  of  ideas,  or  possibly  a  single  idea.  Gradually  it  becomes 
associated  with  a  variety  of  ideas  or  classes  of  ideas  and  becomes 
enlarged  in  meaning.  Dr.  Harris  has  suggested  that  words  are 
like  bags  into  which  new  treasures  of  a  given  class  are  constantly 
being  poured.  After  long  use  a  word  is  apt  to  become  rich  with 
meaning.  But  not  only  are  words  the  symbols  of  ideas.  They 
have  even  a  much  more  vital  relation.  Because  impression  and 
expression  are  absolutely  interrelated,  because  all  thought  has 
its  motor  aspect,  words  come  to  be  an  integral  part  of  the  idea. 
After  an  idea  has  been  expressed  by  means  of  words  the  idea 
could  no  more  be  reinstated  without  thought  of  the  word  than 
the  idea  of  skating  could  be  thought  of  without  reviving  the  idea 
of  the  appropriate  movements. 

Language  an  Index  to  Child  and  Race  Development. — There  is 
a  direct  relation  between  the  growth  of  ideas  in  the  child  or  in 
the  race  and  the  development  of  language.  The  race  that  is 
high  in  the  scale  of  civilization  is  rich  in  ideas,  and  is  possessed 
of  a  rich  vocabulary.  The  full  vocabulary  is  not  only  a  resultant 
but  a  cause.  The  rich  vocabulary  has  enabled  the  race  to 
develop  a  rich  store  of  concepts.  In  turn  the  acquisition  of  a 
rich  variety  of  concepts  has  necessitated  and  stimulated  the 
development  of  a  large  and  expressive  vocabulary.  The  size 
of  the  dictionary  of  a  people  is  indicative  of  their  racial  status. 
The  size  of  the  dictionary  is  also  predictable  if  one  knows  the 
mental  capacity  of  the  people. 

Likewise  the  child's  vocabulary  is  a  good  index  to  his  range 
of  ideas  and  activities.  A  child  denied  the  privileges  of  country 
life,  for  example,  will  use  a  vocabulary  unrelated  to  rural  con- 
ditions. On  the  other  hand  the  child's  range  and  accuracy  of 
ideas  is  very  vitally  conditioned  by  the  acquisition  of  a  suitable 
vocabulary  with  which  to  label,  isolate,  and  reflect  upon  ideas 
he  gains  through  concrete  presentations.  Many  a  country  boy 
comes  in  contact  with  a  vast  array  of  concrete  facts,  but  because 


6io  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

of  lack  of  training  to  observe  more  analytically,  to  think  more 
conceptually,  and  to  integrate  and  clarify  his  concepts  through 
language  he  remains  uneducated  in  the  highest  sense.  The 
lowest  and  foundational  stages  were  experienced,  but  develop- 
ment was  arrested  upon  the  low  plane. 

The  foregoing  considerations  point  toward  the  necessity  of 
wise  training  in  language,  both  native  and  foreign.  No  course 
of  study  can  wisely  omit  the  expression  side  of  the  educative 
process.  The  slogan  "ideas  before  words"  should  be  stated, 
"ideas  and  words."  Language  training  should  be  an  integral 
part  of  every  course  in  geography,  history,  mathematics,  or  any 
other  subject.  Some  foreign  language  should  also  be  a  required 
part  of  the  course  of  study,  because  of  the  clarifying  and  enlarg- 
ing effects  upon  the  vernacular.  The  little  child  says  incoherent 
things,  often  moves  his  whole  body  instead  of  his  vocal  organs, 
and  if  required  to  think  exactly  writhes  and  twists  his  body, 
hesitates,  stammers,  and  does  anything  but  say  the  exact  thing. 
It  is  wholly  unpsychological  to  expect  that  a  child  shall  express 
his  ideas  in  refined  language.  That  result  is  only  possible  after 
long  training  in  speech.  Some  persons  never  acquire  the  skill. 
Clearness  and  accuracy  of  expression  mean  clearness  of  ideas 
and  exact  co-ordination  between  ideas  gained  and  means  of 
expression,  and  between  these  and  the  muscular  organs.  Grad- 
ually, through  careful  training  in  language,  properly  correlated 
with  the  acquisition  of  ideas  and  activities,  the  learner  acquires 
the  refinements  of  language  which  indicate  clearness  and  pre- 
cision of  thinking.  In  the  early  stages  of  education,  while  the 
child  is  gathering  sense  impressions  and  laying  the  foundations 
for  relational  thinking,  we  must  be  content  with  many  crudities 
of  speech.  Just  as  the  child  sees  only  externals  and  those  often 
in  incorrect  relations,  we  must  expect  that  his  speech  will  be  dis- 
connected, distorted,  abbreviated,  and  wholly  crude  and  unre- 
fined. With  patience  in  teaching  him  to  observe  and  to  weigh 
and  consider  his  expression,  we  may  expect  his  concepts  to  be- 
come full,  clear,  and  accurate,  and  his  expression  to  become 
adjusted  and  correlated  with  them.  The  two  must  grow  to- 


THE  CONCEPT  IN  EDUCATION  611 

gether,  and  it  is  futile  to  expect  either  to  develop  properly 
without  the  influence  of  the  other. 

The  Statement  of  Concepts. — Although  the  importance  of  ex- 
pression and  language  training  have  been  emphasized,  a  caution 
needs  to  be  suggested  against  the  forcing  of  over-refined  scientific 
statements  before  the  concepts  themselves  have  been  acquired. 
It  is  easy  to  require  children  to  memorize  definitions  and  descrip- 
tions of  things  which  they  totally  fail  to  comprehend.  No  defi- 
nition should  be  committed  to  memory  until  its  meaning  is 
understood.  A  definition  is  a  highly  condensed  statement  of  a 
concept.  Since  the  expression  of  a  concept  is  the  final  step  in 
its  acquisition,  if  memorized  before  understood  it  tends  to  close 
the  mind  against  further  analysis  of  the  content.  It  therefore 
closes  all  avenues  of  acquisition  for  that  particular  idea.  What 
is  true  of  definitions  is  also  true  of  rules. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  summaries  and  outlines  made — by 
the  pupils  themselves.  If  stereotyped  summaries  and  outlines 
are  learned  they  tend,  like  definitions,  to  close  the  mind  against 
further  search  for  content  and  meaning.  An  outline  presented 
at  the  beginning  of  a  subject  or  topic  should  never  be  memorized 
at  that  stage.  It  may  be  presented  as  a  sort  of  guide-board  to 
indicate  the  direction  to  be  followed,  but  it  is  detrimental  if 
considered  as  the  full  expression  of  the  concepts  themselves. 
The  most  valuable  outlines  and  summaries  are  those  made  by 
the  learners  themselves.  It  is  especially  important  that  ad- 
vanced students  be  required  to  organize  the  materials  which  they 
have  acquired.  Unless  required  to  do  so  they,  like  children,  tend 
to  depend  upon  verbal  memory,  and  frequently  deceive  them- 
selves and  their  instructors  by  the  expression  of  knowledge  which 
is  vague  and  meaningless  to  them.  Even  though  the  summaries 
made  by  the  learner  himself  may  be  less  finished  than  those  given 
by  the  instructor  and  memorized  in  form  by  the  learner,  they  are 
far  more  valuable  than  any  that  are  borrowed  ready-made.  The 
summaries  made  independently  by  the  learner  indicate  what 
he  knows — his  concepts — while  those  memorized  from  another 
show  what  the  teacher  knows  and  the  pupil  is  able  to  echo. 


612  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Scientific  Classification  and  Organization  of  Knowledge. — Im- 
portant as  it  is  to  have  knowledge  classified  in  an  orderly  and 
scientific  manner,  a  caution  should  be  observed  against  over- 
emphasizing this  with  beginners.  The  child  mind  is  not  sci- 
entific in  its  tendencies.  It  is  absorptive,  acquisitive,  but  not 
orderly.  The  interest  and  the  attention  of  the  child  are  flitting 
and  undoubtedly  this  is  necessary  for  normal  growth.  Too  long- 
continued  attention  in  any  direction  causes  over-tension  and  one- 
sidedness  of  growth,  because  of  the  great  plasticity  at  that  age. 
It  is  a  great  mistake  to  over-emphasize  system,  classification,  or 
refinement  of  expression  in  childhood.  It  is  sure  to  kill  interest, 
spontaneity,  and  self-activity  and  to  produce  arrest  of  develop- 
ment in  some  direction  or  other.  We  must  remember  that  one 
of  the  very  causes  of  instability  is  the  struggle  of  instinctive 
tendencies  to  assert  themselves.  While  we  are  causing  the  child 
to  fix  absolutely  certain  forms  and  formulas,  we  are  probably 
stifling  the  expression  of  many  desirable  instincts  and  making 
him  lop-sided  in  other  directions.  Any  teacher  who  has  tried 
to  teach  nature  study  to  children  from  a  book,  logically  and 
scientifically  arranged  from  the  adult  point  of  view,  has  un- 
doubtedly made  a  failure  of  it.  Even  in  the  grammar  school 
and  the  high,  school  there  is  great  danger  of  over-emphasizing 
the  purely  logical  side  of  the  studies.  There  is  too  much  anxiety 
to  have  everything  systematized  and  ticketed  when  the  pupil 
leaves  a  course  at  any  point.  What  will  be  the  harm  if  pupils  do 
not  "  finish  "  a  given  " course"  in  history,  geography,  or  physics ? 
Who  can  say  what  "the  course"  should  be  in  any  one  of  them? 
In  different  countries,  in  different  localities  every  one  of  them 
may  differ  very  materially  in  content.  When  a  student  studies 
history  in  college  he  certainly  ought  to  organize  the  subject 
thoroughly,  but  before  that  time  it  is  far  more  important  that 
he  gather  facts  and  acquire  a  headway  of  interest. 

We  may  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  with  beginners  in  any 
grade  of  school,  and  even  in  college,  there  is  great  danger  of 
over-emphasis  of  classification  and  systematization  of  knowledge. 
To  classify  and  organize  there  must  be  something  to  classify  and 


THE   CONCEPT  IN   EDUCATION  613 

organize.  The  beginner  in  economics,  chemistry,  psychology, 
or  the  theory  of  education,  for  example,  needs  to  go  through  a 
gathering  period  before  devoting  too  much  attention  to  sys- 
tematization  and  organization,  no  less  than  does  the  child  in  the 
kindergarten.  The  genesis  and  growth  of  the  concept  demands 
it;  and  organization  means  relatively  finished  expression  of  con- 
cepts. Of  course,  the  teacher  should  proceed  in  an  orderly, 
systematic  manner,  but  it  is  fatal  to  spontaneous  growth  in  the 
learner  if  he  becomes  too  conscious  of  the  method  by  which  he 
is  acquiring.  He  should  be  absorbingly  interested  in  the  ideas 
or  activities  acquired  and  relatively  oblivious  of  the  method  of 
acquisition.  Even  the  teacher  must  be  guided  much  more  by 
the  psychological  unfolding  of  his  pupils'  minds  than  by  logical 
categories. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
INDUCTION  AND  DEDUCTION  IN  EDUCATION 

Inference. — The  drawing  of  conclusions  from  given  data  is 
termed  inference.  The  mind  may  move  in  either  one  of  two  di- 
rections in  drawing  inferences.  It  may  begin  with  particular 
data,  isolated  cases,  and  attempt  to  determine  the  general  law 
which  governs  all  of  the  class  and  seek  the  necessary  relation- 
ship which  exists  between  the  cases  which  seem  to  fall  into  a  class; 
or  it  may  take  the  general  law  and  apply  it  to  a  particular  case. 
In  either  instance  the  relationship  existing  among  the  ideas  or  the 
phenomena  is  what  is  sought.  "The  purpose  of  an  inference  is 
always  the  same;  namely,  to  exhibit  the  relation  and  connection 
of  particular  facts  or  events  in  virtue  of  some  universal  law  or 
principle.  In  deductive  thinking,  such  a  law  is  known,  or  pro- 
visionally assumed  as  known,  and  the  problem  is  to  show  its 
application  to  the  facts  with  which  we  are  dealing.  In  induction, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  starting-point  must  be  the  particular 
facts,  and  the  task  which  thought  has  to  perform  is  to  discover 
the  general  law  of  their  connection.  Both  deduction  and  induc- 
tion play  an  important  part  in  the  work  of  building  up  knowl- 
edge." l 

Meaning  of  Induction. — In  every-day  life  we  employ  a  great 
many  words  which  denote  concepts.  Many  of  these  classifica- 
tions of  objects,  laws,  rules,  and  relations  we  have  not  worked 
out  for  ourselves  but  have  taken  second-hand.  Somebody,  how- 
ever, has  had  to  work  them  out.  Occasionally  we  derive  inde- 
pendently from  given  data  which  we  possess  a  new  law,  or  rule, 
or  classification.  This  process  of  arriving  at  generalizations 

1  Creighton,  An  Introductory  Logic,  p.  173. 
614 


INDUCTION  AND  DEDUCTION  615 

through  a  consideration  of  particulars  we  term  induction.  It  is 
a  process  of  deriving  generalizations  from  particular  cases  or 
of  passing  from  the  particular  to  the  universal  through  the  par- 
ticular. It  is  essentially  the  process  of  developing  concepts  from 
and  through  individual  experiences. 

It  is  frequently  stated  that  induction  is  a  process  of  passing 
from  the  particular  to  the  general,  but  it  should  be  understood 
that  a  real  induction  involves  the  derivation  by  the  mind  of  a 
conclusion  or  a  judgment  from  these  particulars  under  consider- 
ation. Induction  is  a  process  of  thinking,  a  process  of  reasoning, 
and  unless  the  mind  weighs,  compares,  and  comes  to  a  conclusion 
jrom  the  data  involved  there  is  no  induction.  To  consider  this 
book  and  then  that  book  and  then  all  books,  for  example,  is  not 
necessarily  induction.  It  is  only  such  if  the  mind  arrived  at  a 
generalization  applying  to  all  books  or  a  class  of  books  through 
the  contemplation  of  the  particular  books. 

Illustrations. — Here  is  an  apple  blossom  with  five  petals.  I 
examine  several  others,  and  finding  the  same  number  in  each 
and  that  the  arrangement  is  regular  I  conclude  that  there  are 
five  petals  on  every  apple  blossom.  People  saw  a  good  many 
swans  all  of  which  were  white,  and  the  belief  that  all  swans  were 
white  became  firmly  fixed.  We  now  know,  however,  that  there 
are  black  swans.  But  as  long  as  only  white  swans  had  been  seen 
the  former  conclusion  was  a  legitimate  induction.  For  thousands 
of  years  people  believed  the  earth  to  be  flat  and  plate-shaped. 
They  arrived  at  these  conclusions  just  as  we  should  do  in  case 
we  had  not  been  taught  differently.  We  never  noticed  evidence 
of  its  sphericity,  and  from  every  point  of  view  the  line  of  meeting 
of  the  earth  and  sky  seems  to  form  a  circle  and  we  seem  to  stand 
in  the  centre  of  the  circular  plane  surface. 

When  the  child  first  perceives  things  they  are  experienced  as 
isolated  things  without  relationship  or  laws.  Gradually  as 
experiences  multiply  they  seem  to  occur  in  regular  orders  and 
sequences,  and  connections  seem  to  obtain  among  various  things. 
These  experiences  gradually  become  classified  and  arranged 
according  to  laws  apparent  to  the  child.  This  is  precisely  what 


6i6  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

occurs  when  the  adult  views  new  experiences.  At  first  each 
occurrence  is  viewed  singly,  but  as  other  phenomena  occur  they 
gradually  become  classified.  The  main  difference  here  between 
the  child  and  the  adult  is  that  the  adult  mind  arrives  at  more 
general  laws,  which  are  more  correct,  and  instead  of  mere  chance 
associational  bonds  that  assist  in  classification  the  adult  seeks 
and  finds  more  causal  relations.  However,  the  ordinary  adult 
is  far  from  being  critical  and  accurate,  and  many  generalizations 
are  incorrect  and  even  absurd.  It  is  only  the  careful  scientist 
who  is  able  to  make  correct  inductions.  Even  many  of  his  con- 
clusions are  apt  to  be  very  imperfect  and  need  continual  revision. 
The  true  scientist  is  cautious  about  dogmatic  assertions  and  waits 
until  sufficient  evidence  is  collected  before  proclaiming  his  be- 
liefs. Darwin,  though  believing  in  certain  conclusions  for  a  long 
time,  was  willing  to  collect  materials  and  to  observe  for  thirty 
years  before  publishing  his  conclusions  to  the  world. 

Classes  of  Induction. — There  are  usually  two  classes  of  induc- 
tion spoken  of  by  logicians;  perfect  induction  when  all  possible 
cases  have  been  examined,  and  imperfect  induction  where  only 
a  limited  number  of  individuals  have  been  examined  and  aeon- 
elusion  is  derived  from  this  number.  The  distinction  seems 
almost  superfluous,  for  in  reality  there  are  very  few  cases  where 
all  the  individuals  can  be  examined.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to 
examine  all  cases.  It  is  not  the  number  of  cases  but  the  discover- 
ing of  the  necessary  relationships  that  constitutes  the  essence  of 
inductive  reasoning.  The  untrained  individual  often  thinks  he 
has  made  complete  enumerations — all  the  cases  that  he  has  no- 
ticed having  exhibited  certain  characteristics.  The  fault  with 
him  is  (i)  that  he  has  noted  merely  contiguous  or  chronological 
sequence  and  not  real  relations,  or  (2)  that  because  of  prepos- 
sessions prejudicing  his  mind  he  has  failed  to  observe  cases  not 
in  accord  with  his  theories.  What  he  has  really  done  is  to  form 
an  hypothesis  for  a  single  instance  and  then  to  enumerate 
instances  that  support  his  crude  theory.  And  because  of  his 
uncritical  and  easily  biased  mind  he  perceives  only  the  instances 
that  support  his  hypothesis.  Some  farmers,  for  example,  are 


INDUCTION   AND   DEDUCTION  617 

sure  that  three  white  frosts  bring  a  rain;  that  planting  potatoes 
in  the  new  of  the  moon  makes  them  grow  better;  and  that  toads 
and  earth-worms  rain  down.  The  savage  believes  that  spirits 
eat  the  food  which  is  left  in  the  forest  for  their  propitiation;  he 
resorts  to  charms,  incantations,  and  sorcery  in  the  cure  of  dis- 
ease; and  he  continually  ascribes  anthropomorphic  causes  to  nat- 
ural phenomena.  The  child  likewise  is  anthropomorphic,  and 
continually  comes  to  erroneous  conclusions.  All  such  conclu- 
sions are  arrived  at  because  of  imperfect  induction. 

Creighton  gives  as  a  case  of  so-called  perfect  induction,  the 
conclusion  that  all  months  of  the  year  contain  less  than  thirty- 
two  days.  He  believes,  however,  that  cases  like  this  where 
results  can  be  summed  into  an  absolutely  correct  general  propo- 
sition are  not  necessarily  induction.  Induction  does  not  merely 
aim  at  the  summation  of  particular  instances.  But  "the  real 
object  of  inductive  inference  is  to  discover  the  general  law  or 
principle  which  runs  through  and  connects  a  number  of  particu- 
lar instances."  He  admits  that  "It  is,  of  course,  true  that  we 
shall  be  more  likely  to  obtain  a  correct  insight  into  the  nature 
of  the  law  from  an  examination  of  a  larger  number  of  cases  than 
from  a  small  number.  But  the  discovery  of  the  principle,  and 
not  the  number  of  instances,  is  the  main  point.  If  the  purpose 
of  the  induction,  the  discovery  of  the  universal  principle,  can  be 
adequately  attained,  one  case  is  as  good  as  a  hundred."  1 

By  mere  enumeration  we  may  gain  certain  aggregate  facts, 
but  it  is  only  when  we  classify  these  facts,  i.  e.,  consider  relation- 
ships and  group  according  to  relationships  that  there  is  genuine 
induction.  These  relationships  must  also  be  more  than  acci- 
dental; they  must  be  necessary  relations — conditions  that  would 
obtain  if  the  group  became  larger,  conditions  which  one  could 
prophesy  for  the  group  however  much  extended.  Real  induc- 
tive processes  consider  the  why  as  well  as  the  what  and  the 
conclusions  are  based  upon  the  necessary  relations.  There  is 
not  necessarily  any  induction  in  taking  a  census,  although  a 
census  should  afford  data  for  many  inferences. 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  1 88. 


6iS  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Children's  Inductions. — Children  do  much  more  thinking  than 
they  are  credited  with.  Much  of  their  thinking  has  one  char- 
acteristic of  scientific  thinking,  viz.,  independence.  Their 
judgments  are  apt  to  lack  accuracy  because  they  jump  at  con- 
clusions before  gaining  sufficient  data  and  they  do  not  try  to 
verify  them.  Many  of  their  conclusions,  however,  are  better 
illustrations  of  genuine  inductions  than  the  echoings  of  some 
older  people.  My  boy  of  four  said  one  cold  day  on  reaching 
a  park:  "Let  us  hurry  for  it  will  be  cold  here."  I  inquired 
why.  "Because  the  trees  make  the  wind  blow,"  he  replied. 
G.,  a  girl  of  five,  brought  me  some  elderberry  blossoms  and 
asked:  "What  are  these?  What  becomes  of  them?"  She 
was  told  that  they  become  fruit.  "Then,  do  cherries  have 
blossoms  before  the  cherries  grow?"  she  inquired.  "Yes,"  I 
said.  "Do  apples  have  blossoms?"  "Yes."  "Do  all  fruits 
have  flowers  first?"  Then  came  the  statement:  "There  will 
be  no  berries  if  we  pick  off  the  flowers."  Here  we  have  a  per- 
fectly definite  chain  of  induction,  and  the  conclusion  was  inde- 
pendently drawn  from  the  data  at  hand. 

When  the  child  says,  "I  runned,"  "I  singed,"  "I  hurted 
myself,"  etc.,  he  is  applying  conclusions  reached  inductively. 
The  course  of  reasoning  is  not  a  conscious  process,  but  is 
just  as  unerring  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  deliberate  analysis 
and  synthesis.  Many  misspellings  are  the  result  of  reasoning 
based  upon  analogies.  Certain  values  are  learned  for  given 
letters  and  the  inference  is  drawn  that  the  same  values  will 
always  obtain.  The  misspelling  is  not  the  result  of  illogical 
reasoning,  but  quite  the  contrary.  The  following  actual  mis- 
takes illustrate  the  point  advanced:  meny,  sed,  pee  pie,  mutch, 
eny,  km,  axadent,  sucksced,  ashure.  To  spell  correctly  many 
words  of  the  English  language  one  must  be  able  to  disregard 
logic  and  remember  isolated  combinations  of  sounds. 

The  child,  like  the  savage,  is  anthropomorphic  and  soon 
learns  to  ascribe  very  concrete  causes  to  actions  not  visible  and 
to  forces  not  understood.  For  example,  the  wind  is  caused  by 
some  one  waving  a  big  fan;  the  rain  comes  down  because  some 


INDUCTION  AND  DEDUCTION  619 

one  has  made  holes  in  the  sky;  lightning  is  caused  by  God 
lighting  the  gas  quickly;  thunder  is  the  sound  made  by  a  wagon 
in  the  sky,  or  sometimes  it  is  God  groaning  or  walking  on  the 
floor,  etc.  Children  develop  their  own  unique  ideas  on  moral 
questions.  They  are  quite  certain  to  conclude  that  acts  which 
are  forbidden  are  wrong  and  that  all  not  forbidden  are  perfectly 
right.  Through  our  injudicious  methods  of  correction  they  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  sin  consists  not  in  the  doing  of  certain 
things,  but  in  getting  caught.  Thus  the  "protective  lie"  comes 
to  be  resorted  to  and  believed  to  be  right.  Children's  inductions 
concerning  the  Deity,  religion,  time,  the  self,  distance,  etc.,  are 
all  very  naive,  but  strikingly  independent  of  authority.1 

It  is  a  sad  commentary  that  when  the  child  begins  school  he 
begins  to  surrender  much  of  his  independence  of  thinking. 
Being  set  to  learning  books  instead  of  continuing  with  the  world 
of  objective  reality,  he  soon  learns  to  rely  on  authority  instead 
of  upon  the  evidence  of  his  own  senses.  Again,  his  questionings 
are  silenced  by  our  methods  and  he  ceases  to  be  an  alert  inquirer 
while  in  school.  The  teacher  frequently  does  all  the  interrogat- 
ing and  marks  him  down  for  wrong  answers  and  for  ignorance 
displayed  by  his  questions.  No  wonder  that  he  subconsciously 
arrives  at  the  induction:  "It  pays  to  be  silent  and  to  expose 
as  little  ignorance  as  possible."  Verbatim  memory  for  the  day 
comes  to  be  the  best-paying  capital. 

Examples  of  Induction  in  Teaching. — Some  examples  are 
adduced  which  illustrate  the  utilization  of  induction  in  the 
teaching  arts.  The  discussions  here  are  necessarily  much 
abridged. 

Take  a  tube  which  is  nearly  full  of  water  and  blow  into  it. 
A  sound  of  a  certain  pitch  is  produced.  Lengthen  the  tube  by 
pouring  out  part  of  the  water  and  a  lower  tone  is  produced. 
Pour  out  still  more  water  thereby  lengthening  the  tube  and  a 
still  lower  tone  is  produced.  What  may  be  concluded  from 

1  For  some  splendid  collections  of  illustrations,  see  Sully,  Studies  of  Childhood, 
chaps.  3,  4;  his  Children's  Ways,  chaps.  4,  5,  6;  Brown,  H.  W.,  "Thoughts  and 
Reasonings  of  Children,"  Fed.  Sem.,  2  :  358-396;  Hancock,  J.  A.,  "Children's 
Ability  to  Reason,"  Ed.  Rev.,  12  :  261-268;  Barnes,  Earl,  Studies  in  Education. 


620  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

this  experiment?  That  the  longer  the  tube  the  lower  the  tone; 
the  shorter  the  tube  the  higher  the  tone. 

The  laws  of  decimal  fraction  notation  and  numeration  may 
be  discovered  and  stated  by  pupils  themselves.  Presupposing 
that  the  decimal  notation  for  integral  numbers  is  understood, 
the  following  questions  may  be  asked  concerning  the  expression 
1 1 1 1 1 :  What  is  the  value  of  the  second  figure  from  the  right  as 
compared  with  the  first  i?  Ans.  Ten  times  as  great.  The 
third  with  the  second  ?  The  fourth  with  the  third,  etc.  ?  What 
is  the  name  of  each  order?  Now,  how  does  the  third  figure 
from  the  right  compare  with  the  fourth  ?  The  second  with  the 
third?  The  first  with  the  second?  What  would  be  the  value 
of  the  next  order  to  the  right  as  compared  with  the  first?  Ans. 
One-tenth.  The  next?  Ans.  One-hundredth.  What  should 
be  the  name  of  each  ?  Now  we  place  a  point  between  the  whole 
number  and  the  fraction  to  indicate  the  separation.  How  read 
i  ?  If  I  place  a  point  to  the  left  of  it,  what  does  it  become  ? 
ii. i,  how  read?  .1,  how  read?  .11,  how  read?  etc. 

The  rule  for  pointing  off  in  multiplication  of  decimals  may 
be  taught  inductively.  Presupposing  a  knowledge  of  writing 
common  fractions  as  decimals  we  may  proceed  as  follows: 
Write  the  decimals  first  as  common  fractions. 

A. 


5  _ 

S 

25 

25 

IO 

IO 

IOO 

5  . 

5 

25 

.021; 

A 

10 

IOO 

1000 

3 

2 

6 

IOO 

IOO 

IOOOO 

.0006 


Now  writing  the  decimal  forms  we  have: 


-5  -5  -°3 

•5  -°5  -02 


25  ?  25  ?  6    ? 

Because  the  expressions  in  A  and  B  are  equal,  their  products 
must  be  equal.     Then  compare  the  number  of  places  in  the  mul- 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION 


621 


tiplier  and  multiplicand  together,  in  each  case  with  the  number 
in  the  product.  Pupils  have  no  difficulty  in  formulating  the  rule. 
The  following  illustration  shows  how  the  learner  may  arrive 
at  the  rule  for  finding  (a)  the  area  of  a  rectangle,  and  (6)  the 
area  of  a  triangle.  Draw  a  rectangle,  for  example,  one  that 
represents  a  surface  of  6  ft.  x  4  ft. 


FIG.  41. 

(a)  Divide  it  into  squares.     How  many  squares  in  the  upper 
row?    Ans.  Six.     How  many  in  the  next?    Ans.  Six.     How 
many  in  each  row  ?     How  many  rows  of  squares  ?    Ans.  Four. 

Then  if  there  are  six  squares  in  each  of  four  rows,  how  many 
squares?  Ans.  Twenty-four  squares.  State  how  you  found 
this.  Ans.  By  multiplying  six  squares  by  four.  What  do  each 
of  the  six  squares  represent?  Ans.  A  square  foot.  Then  state 
the  rule  for  finding  the  area  of  a  rectangle.  By  this  method  it 
will  easily  be  seen  that  we  obtain  square  feet  because  we  started 
with  a  square  foot  as  the  unit.  Similarly  the  rule  for  finding  the 
cubic  contents  of  a  rectangular  solid  can  be  developed.  In  fact, 
practically  all  of  the  rules  in  the  mensuration  of  surfaces  and 
solids  can  be  thus  built  up. 

(b)  Draw  a  diagonal  of  the  rectangle  and  ask:    How  do  the 
two  parts  of  the  rectangle  produced  by  drawing  the  diagonal 
compare  in  size?    It  is  manifest  that  they  are  equal.     What 
part  of  the  rectangle  is  each  of  the  triangles?     How  does  the 
base  of  each  triangle  compare  with  the  length  of  the  rectangle  ? 
Ans.  They  are  equal.     How  do  the  heights  or  altitudes  of  the 


622  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

triangle  compare  with  the  width  of  the  rectangle?  They  are 
equal.  State  again  the  rule  for  finding  the  area  of  a  rectangle. 
Then,  how  shall  we  find  the  area  of  each  triangle?  State  the 
rule  for  finding  the  area  of  any  right  triangle,  when  base  and 
altitude  are  given.  This  could  be  extended  so  as  to  hold  for 
any  triangle. 

Examples  from  algebra  are  very  easy  to  find.  By  actual 
division  get  the  following  results: 

a2-b2  +  a-b  =  a  +b 
a3  -  b3  H-  a  -  b  =  a2  +  ab  +  b2 
a4  -  ft4  -5-  a  -  b  =  a3  +  a2b  +  ab2  +  b3 
a5  -  bs  -4-  a  -  b  =  a4  +  a3b  +  a2b2  +  ab3  +  b4 
a10-  6'°H-  a  -  b  =  a9  +  asb  +  a7b2  +  a6b3  +  a*b4  +  a*bs  +  a3b*  + 
a2V  +  abs  +  b9 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  dividend?  Ans.  The  difference  of 
like  powers  of  the  two  numbers.  The  nature  of  the  divisor? 
Ans.  The  difference  between  the  two  numbers.  Are  all  of  the 
given  dividends  divisible  by  a—  b  ?  Do  you  think  am  —  bm  di- 
visible by  a  —b  ?  a*  —bx  and  an  —  bn  by  a  —b  ?  Do  the  last  be- 
long to  the  same  class  as  the  first?  State  what  you  believe  to 
be  true,  i.  e.,  the  law  or  rule.  Proceed  in  a  similar  manner  to 
develop  the  law  of  exponents,  number  of  terms,  etc.,  in  the 
quotient. 

As  another  illustration  take  the  following:1 

What  does  a2  a2  a2  equal?    What  then  does  (a2)3  equal? 
What  does  a3  a3  a3  equal  ?    What  then  does  (a3)3  equal  ? 
What  does  a4  a4  a*  equal  ?     What  then  does  (a4)3  equal  ? 
What  does  o5  as  a5  equal  ?     What  then  does  (a5)3  equal  ? 
What  does  an  an  an  equal  ?     What  then  does  (an)3  equal  ? 
What  does  an  an  an  an  equal  ?     What  then  does  (a")4  equal  ? 
What  does  the  product  of  r  factors  each  of  which  is  an  equal  ? 
What  does  (an)r  equal  ? 

The  rth  power  of  the  nth  power  of  a  number  is  equal  to  the 
nrth  power  of  that  number;  this  is  expressed  in  the  formula 
(an)  r=anr. 

1  From  A  School  Algebra,  by  C.  A.  Van  Velzer  and  C.  S.  Slichtcr,  p.    164. 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION  623 

In  the  ordinary  Euclidian  geometry  taught  in  the  high  schools 
the  method  to  be  followed  is  deductive  and  not  inductive. 
(Unfortunately  it  is  often  taught  neither  inductively  nor  de- 
ductively, but  is  mere  memory  work — all  on  faith.)  Undoubt- 
edly the  deductive  geometry  should  be  taught  in  the  high  school, 
but  it  should  have  been  preceded  by  a  course  in  inductive 
geometry.  An  example  of  the  inductive  method  in  geometry 
may  here  be  mentioned  to  illustrate  the  point  of  view.  Measure 
each  of  the  angles  of  several  given  triangles  and  compute  the 
sum  of  the  angles  in  each  triangle.  The  class  may  measure  a 
good  many  and  give  their  own  conclusions.  This  is  not  orig- 
inal investigation  for  the  teacher  sets  a  definite  problem  and 
shows  the  means  for  its  solution. 

Geography  is  an  excellent  subject  for  exercises  in  inductive 
thinking.  All  the  general  notions  of  commerce,  occupations, 
trade  relations,  and  of  natural  features  should  be  built  up  objec- 
tively as  largely  as  possible  and  arrived  at  through  the  considera- 
tion of  specific  illustrations.  The  definition  of  a  mountain,  an 
island,  or  a  railroad  system  should  be  among  the  final  steps  in 
geographical  study  rather  than  the  first.  However,  the  general 
notion  should  have  been  growing  gradually  through  the  con- 
sideration of  individual  instances  illustrating  each.  Physical 
geography  offers  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  more  difficult 
inductions  involving  cause  and  effect. 

History  in  its  elementary  phases  is  a  subject  which  deals  with 
facts  which  are  to  be  learned  for  the  purpose  of  later  deriving 
generalizations.  It  cannot  be  divided  up  into  sections  each  of 
which  leads  to  a  law  or  principle.  It  is  difficult  to  state  exactly 
the  generalizations  of  history,  and  the  lessons  that  may  be  learned 
become  larger  and  broader  with  the  increase  of  one's  knowledge 
of  the  facts.  Its  generalizations  are  much  less  definite  though 
real.  The  ideas  gained  from  history  are  at  first  much  more 
isolated.  The  larger  concepts  are  necessarily  of  slow  formation 
and  the  teacher  should  not  force  the  process.  He  should  at  first 
be  content  if  interest  is  secured  and  a  rich  fund  of  facts  accumu- 
lated, even  though  loosely  organized. 


624  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Order  of  Instruction. — The  teacher  knowing  that  the  inductive 
process  is  the  natural  order  in  which  the  mind  moves,  will 
arrange  his  instruction  so  as  to  further  the  habit  and  to  assist 
in  securing  as  a  habit  what  is  not  very  natural,  a  critical  evalua- 
tion of  data.  This  does  not  mean  that  teachers  should  never 
tell  anything.  To  know  when  to  tell,  what  to  tell,  and  how  to 
tell  constitute  high  teaching  art.  But  the  order  should  be  one 
of  inductive  unfoldment  of  ideas;  a  skilful  marshalling  of  facts, 
propounding  of  questions,  and  leading  the  learner  to  draw  con- 
clusions for  himself  as  far  as  possible.  Reasoning  either  by 
induction  or  deduction  means  deriving  relational  knowledge. 
Merely  gathering  facts  without  establishing  new  relations  among 
them  is  not  reasoning  at  all. 

Now  notice  that  usually  the  rule  is  stated  at  the  outset,  the 
pupil  told  to  learn  it  and  then  given  examples  for  practice.  By 
that  procedure  he  is  not  trained  in  reasoning  but  merely  in 
computing,  according  to  rule.  Proof  should  come  at  some  stage, 
but  that  is  much  harder.  That  should  be  considered  under 
deduction.  He  should  be  trained  to  think  and  to  work  from 
principles  rather  than  from  rules. 

Relation  of  the  Text-book  to  Induction. — Some  have  con- 
tended that  text-books  ought  to  give  generalizations  only;  others 
that  they  ought  to  give  the  detailed  facts  but  omit  the  generaliza- 
tions and  rules,  leaving  these  to  be  worked  out  by  pupils,  with 
the  teacher's  help.  In  the  first  kind  of  book  the  particulars 
would  need  to  be  supplied  by  the  teacher.  This  works  fairly 
well  in  some  subjects  with  skilful  teachers.  For  example,  an 
arithmetic  on  this  plan  would  begin  each  case  with  the  statement 
of  the  rule  and  then  follow  with  examples  and  problems  for 
application.  All  preliminary  illustrative  material  would  be 
omitted.  Such  a  book  in  the  hands  of  a  poor  teacher  would  be 
very  uninteresting  and  difficult.  Many  of  the  text-books  in  the 
German  schools  are  of  this  type.  Even  in  geography  there  is 
the  merest  outline  and  a  summary  of  generalizations.  Geogra- 
phies in  this  country  have  been  of  this  type,  but  the  newer  ones 
furnish  much  material.  The  ones  which  furnish  more  material 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION  625 

are  manifestly  more  desirable  than  those  which  are  merely 
boiled-down  summaries.  Only  the  teacher  with  an  abundance 
of  time  and  equipment  can  furnish  the  many  details  necessary. 
Even  then  the  well-written  text-book  has  the  materials  better 
selected  and  arranged  than  can  be  done  for  a  particular  class  by 
most  teachers. 

A  book  of  facts  with  the  generalizations  omitted  is  often  to  be 
found  in  our  newer  arithmetics.  They  are  better  than  the 
book  with  only  the  generalizations.  However,  in  unskilled 
hands  they  produce  chaotic  results.  Knowledge  needs  classifi- 
cation and  ticketing  in  order  to  be  usable.  The  rules  and 
generalizations  fulfil  the  same  functions  as  words.  They  help 
to  isolate  knowledge,  to  classify  it,  and  to  form  a  centre  about 
which  to  group  new  related  knowledge.  A  good  text-book  con- 
tains plenty  of  material.  This  material  should  be  arranged  in 
a  logical  sequence,  selected  according  to  psychological  needs, 
and  in  such  a  way  that  the  learner  who  follows  the  discussion 
thoughtfully  foresees  the  generalization  before  reaching  it.  The 
book  statement  of  the  generalization  should,  of  course,  be  the 
best,  and  be  calculated  to  clarify  and  enlarge  the  learner's 
notions.  In  many  cases  the  teacher  may  go  over  the  same  lesson 
orally  before  assigning  the  text  to  be  read.  The  book  is  then 
used  to  clarify  and  impress  the  knowledge  more  firmly.  In 
other  cases  the  pupils  may  safely  be  set  to  work  out  the  lesson 
themselves.  A  book  properly  arranged  meets  their  apperceptions 
and  furnishes  the  data  necessary  for  the  development  of  every 
generalization.  Every  good  text-book  for  older  pupils  should 
be  so  arranged  that  the  learner  could  use  it  to  good  advantage 
without  a  teacher.  With  a  teacher,  he  should  be  able  to  use 
it  to  still  better  advantage. 

But  back  of  the  text-book  in  most  subjects  there  must  be 
objective  experiences  gained  at  first  hand.  The  understanding 
of  the  text-book  is  made  possible  only  when  it  calls  up  personal 
observations  and  experiences.  To  be  sure,  the  new  whole  need 
not  have  been  experienced,  but  the  elements  composing  the  new 
whole  must  have  been.  In  the  material  sciences  laboratory  ex- 


626  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

periments  and  demonstrations  should  make  clear  each  step 
whenever  possible.  From  the  very  nature  of  mind  it  is  necessary 
that  the  elementary  notions  in  all  subjects  should  be  built  up 
objectively. 

Importance  and  Use  of  Inductive  Methods. — What  will  the 
pupil  gain  by  being  required  to  form  conclusions  for  himself  ?  In 
some  cases  results  would  be  secured  more  quickly  by  simply  giv- 
ing the  rule  and  requiring  him  to  apply  it.  For  example,  the  rule 
for  pointing  off  in  decimals  can  easily  be  committed  to  memory 
and  its  application  learned  without  understanding  a  shadow  of 
the  reason  therefor.  The  pupil  could  quickly  learn  to  perform 
the  operation  without  mistakes  and  undoubtedly  would  remem- 
ber it  as  long  as  if  acquired  in  a  more  laborious  manner.  Then 
what  is  gained  by  the  more  laborious  process?  Nothing,  pro- 
vided computation  is  the  only  end  in  view.  But  if  arithmetic  is 
to  be  "a  study  which  trains  the  reasoning  powers,"  the  pupil 
must  use  it  as  a  means  of  reasoning.  To  learn  "that  he  must 
invert  the  terms  of  the  divisor  and  multiply"  is  a  mere  act  of 
memory  and  involves  no  real  thinking,  but  to  know  why  he  does 
involves  thinking  to  a  high  degree.  We  wish  to  inculcate 
habits  of  inductive  reasoning. 

Every  successful  man  is  a  good  inductive  reasoner.  The  pro- 
fessor in  a  science  has  no  monopoly  on  induction.  The  business 
man  has  equal  need  of  forming  independent  conclusions  from 
every-day  data.  The  merchant,  the  banker,  any  financier  must 
watch  daily  factors  that  are  liable  to  affect  the  markets,  and  from 
these  factors  they  must  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  course  of 
procedure.  No  rule  can  be  laid  down  that  will  infallibly 
guide,  for  exactly  the  same  factors  never  enter  into  combina- 
tion twice.  Hence  each  set  of  factors  should  lead  to  indepen- 
dent conclusions.  Since  the  mind  works  according  to  habits 
acquired,  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  give  the  mind  in 
early  life  as  strong  a  tendency  as  possible  toward  inductive 
thinking. 

The  dry-goods  merchant  to  be  successful  has  to  determine 
carefully  in  advance  what  kinds  of  goods  to  purchase  for  the 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION  627 

coming  season.  He  must  be  guided  by  the  experiences  of  past 
seasons  and  by  the  present  conditions  of  trade,  and  by  all  the 
factors  that  affect  trade.  The  past  season  will  tell  him  whether 
woollen  or  cotton  goods  sold  best,  and  what  grade,  and  the 
quantity.  The  present  condition  of  the  money  market  will 
enable  him  to  guess  how  freely  people  will  spend  their  money; 
local  conditions,  as  taxes  and  philanthropic  enterprises,  will 
enable  him  to  guess  how  much  money  will  be  diverted  into  other 
channels  and  how  much  may  be  left  to  purchase  from  him.  He 
must  consider  the  growth  of  the  population  of  his  trade  district, 
also  the  number  of  competing  merchants  who  have  moved  in 
or  away  from  his  neighborhood;  and  Dame  Fashion  must  be 
consulted  for  changes  of  styles.  Besides  these  a  host  of  other 
factors  enter  most  intimately  into  the  trade  relations  to  affect 
the  amount  and  the  quality  of  the  stock  to  be  purchased.  The 
merchant  who  can  look  ahead,  foresee  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages, is  the  successful  one.  That  is,  the  one  who  makes 
the  widest,  most  careful  inductions  is  generally  the  most  pros- 
perous. It  often  takes  a  year  or  years  to  prove  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  the  generalizations  which  he  makes,  and  the  bits  of 
evidence  collected  in  testing  his  theories  are  made  the  basis  of 
new  generalizations. 

The  United  States  Weather  Bureau  makes  its  daily  forecasts 
from  the  data  relating  to  barometric  and  thermometric  readings, 
wind  velocities  at  different  points,  and  the  various  changes  in 
temperature,  atmospheric  pressure,  humidity,  etc.  The  fore- 
casts are  simply  inductive  conclusions  asserting  probable  con- 
ditions. The  judge  on  the  bench,  or  the  jury  listening  to  a  trial 
has  problems  of  induction  to  deal  with.  The  testimony  of 
witnesses  is  to  form  the  basis  for  generalizations,  or,  in  other 
words,  it  contains  the  individual  notions  used  in  forming  the 
general  notions.  Similarly  in  every  occupation  there  is  oppor- 
tunity and  necessity  for  arriving  at  new  conclusions  through  the 
consideration  of  particular  cases.  True,  in  many  cases  the  mind 
cannot  isolate  the  data  as  clearly  nor  draw  as  definite  conclusions 
as  in  mathematical  problems.  But  even  in  the  most  " off-hand" 


628  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

guess  the  mind  subconsciously  generalizes  from  data  which  have 
been  previously  gathered.  Even  our  unexplainable  prejudices 
are  results  of  induction. 

Therefore,  how  important  that  the  pupil  be  trained  in  the 
careful  collection  of  evidence  and  in  weighing  it  accurately 
before  jumping  at  conclusions!  The  person  who  habitually 
decides  things  too  hastily  and  then  spends  his  time  regretting 
his  conclusions,  reasons  inductively  no  less  than  the  one  who 
arrives  at  a  safe  conclusion,  but  the  induction  of  the  former  is 
imperfect. 

Pupils,  as  well  as  scientists,  should  be  taught  to  form  hypothe- 
ses to  account  for  certain  phenomena.  Hypotheses  are  guesses, 
but  good  guesses  based  upon  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  condi- 
tions entering  into  the  problem.  The  hypothesis  should  be  (i) 
conceivable  in  the  light  of  the  facts;  (2)  it  should  be  in  accord 
with  the  facts;  (3)  it  should  explain  the  known  facts;  and  (4) 
should  be  of  such  a  character  that  inductions  can  be  made  from 
it.  When  hypotheses  have  stood  the  fire  of  criticism  and  have 
become  well  established  they  are  termed  theories.  The  atomic 
theory  and  the  nebular  theory  were  simply  hypotheses  or  guesses 
which  seemed  to  account  for  certain  phenomena  or  relationships 
that  existed,  and  from  these  guesses  much  actual  progress  in 
further  knowledge  has  been  made  possible.  The  theory  of  a 
universal  ether  was  at  first  propounded  as  an  hypothesis  attempt- 
ing to  explain  some  problems  concerning  the  passage  of  light 
and  heat  rays.  There  were  certain  apparently  demonstrated 
facts  demanding  explanation.  The  hypothesis  which  was  put 
forth  presented  astounding  difficulties  of  conception,  but  it  has 
proved  so  valuable  in  working  out  practical  applications  and  its 
proof  has  been  apparently  so  incontrovertible  that  it  has  long 
been  a  well-accepted  theory.  Even  now,  however,  new  hypothe- 
ses and  theories  looking  toward  the  explanation  of  many  of  the 
phenomena  of  heat  and  light  are  being  propounded. 

Huxley  writes:1  "The  mental  power  which  will  be  of  most 
importance  in  your  daily  life  will  be  the  power  of  seeing  things 

1  Science  and  Education  Essays,  p.  96. 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION  629 

as  they  are  without  regard  to  authority;  and  of  drawing  accurate 
conclusions  from  particular  facts.  But  at  school  and  at  college 
you  shall  know  of  no  source  of  truth  but  authority;  nor  exercise 
your  reasoning  power  upon  anything  but  deduction  from  that 
which  is  laid  down  by  authority."  Again  he  says: l  "No  boy 
or  girl  should  leave  school  without  possessing  a  grasp  of  the 
general  character  of  science,  and  without  having  been  disciplined, 
more  or  less,  in  the,  methods  of  all  the  sciences;  so  that,  when 
turned  into  the  world  to  make  their  own  way,  they  shall  be  pre- 
pared to  face  scientific  problems,  not  by  knowing  at  once  the 
conditions  of  every  problem,  or  by  being  at  once  able  to  solve  it; 
but  by  being  familiar  with  the  general  current  of  scientific 
thought,  and  by  being  able  to  apply  the  methods  of  science  in 
the  proper  way,  when  they  have  acquainted  themselves  with  the 
conditions  of  the  special  problem." 

Further:2  "If  the  great  benefits  of  scientific  training  are 
sought,  it  is  essential  that  such  training  should  be  real:  that  is 
to  say  that  the  mind  of  the  scholar  should  be  brought  into  direct 
relation  with  fact,  that  he  should  not  merely  be  told  a  thing,  but 
made  to  see  by  the  use  of  his  own  intellect  and  ability  that  the 
thing  is  so  and  not  otherwise.  The  great  peculiarity  of  scientific 
training,  that  in  virtue  of  which  it  cannot  be  replaced  by  any 
other  discipline  whatsoever,  is  this  bringing  of  the  mind  directly 
into  contact  with  fact,  and  practising  the  intellect  in  the  com- 
pletest  form  of  induction;  that  is  to  say,  in  drawing  conclusions 
from  particular  facts  made  known  by  immediate  observation  of 
nature." 

He  further  observes3  that  "  It  allows  the  student  to  concentrate 
his  mind  upon  what  he  is  about  for  the  time  being,  and  then  to 
dismiss  it.  Those  who  are  occupied  with  intellectual  work 
will,  I  think,  agree  with  me  that  it  is  important,  not  so  much  to 
know  a  thing  as  to  have  known  it,  and  known  it  thoroughly. 
If  you  have  once  known  a  thing  in  this  way  it  is  easy  to  renew 
your  knowledge  when  you  have  forgotten  it;  and  when  you 

'P.    122.  2P.    126. 

'P.  251- 


630  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

begin  to  take  the  subject  up  again,  it  slides  back  upon  the 
familiar  grooves  with  great  facility." 

Much  school  work  smacks  strongly  of  scholasticism  which 
Sir  Francis  Bacon  very  aptly  characterized:1  "This  kind  of 
degenerate  learning  did  chiefly  reign  among  the  schoolmen,  who 
having  sharp  and  strong  wits,  and  abundance  of  leisure,  and 
small  variety  of  reading,  but  their  wits  being  shut  up  in  the  cells 
of  a  few  authors  (chiefly  Aristotle,  their  dictator),  as  their  per- 
sons were  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  monasteries  and  colleges,  and 
knowing  little  history,  either  of  nature,  or  time — did,  out  of  no 
great  quantity  of  matter  and  infinite  agitation  of  wit,  spin  out 
unto  us  those  laborious  webs  of  learning  which  are  extant  in 
their  books.  For  the  wit  and  mind  of  man,  if  it  work  upon 
matter,  which  is  the  contemplation  of  the  creatures  of  God, 
worketh  according  to  the  stuff  and  is  limited  thereby;  but  if  it 
work  upon  itself,  as  the  spider  worketh  his  web,  then  it  is  end- 
less, and  brings  forth,  indeed,  cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable 
for  the  fineness  of  thread  and  work,  but  of  no  substance  or 
profit." 

The  Deductive  Method. — In  the  deductive  process  a  general- 
ization is  the  starting  point  and  conclusions  which  accord  with 
the  generalizations  are  drawn  concerning  particular  cases.  To 
take  the  classical  illustration:  All  men  are  mortal;  Socrates 
was  a  man;  therefore  Socrates  was  mortal.  Or,  All  names  are 
nouns;  John  is  a  name;  therefore  John  is  a  noun.  The  deduc- 
tive process  assumes  that  through  a  process  of  induction  a 
generalization  in  the  form  of  a  law,  rule,  definition,  or  principle 
has  been  derived  and  then  new  cases  are  measured  by  the  gener- 
alization assumed.  In  the  ordinary  Euclidian  geometry  usually 
studied  in  our  secondary  schools  the  theorem  is  the  generaliza- 
tion assumed.  Although  the  pupil  takes  this  generalization  as 
the  beginning  and  proceeds  deductively  to  test  its  truth  or  fal- 
sity, some  one  undoubtedly  discovered  the  theorem  inductively. 

It  is  very  important  that  the  pupils  learn  to  test  results  which 
they  reach  inductively  or  which  are  furnished  them  ready-made. 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  14  :  5. 


INDUCTION  AND   DEDUCTION  631 

It  is  only  by  verification  that  the  learner  should  come  to  a  feeling 
of  certainty  and  security  in  his  own  inductive  conclusions.  He 
should  also  learn  to  weigh,  test,  and  verify  statements  furnished 
him  by  his  teachers  and  his  books.  There  is  no  certainty  that 
when  a  pupil  has  reproduced  correctly  a  demonstration  in 
geometry  which  he  has  been  set  to  learn  that  he  has  really  gone 
through  a  process  of  deduction.  He  may  have  approached  it 
deductively  and  learned  the  forms,  but  real  deduction  means 
reasoning,  in  which  the  individual  derives  the  conclusions  for 
himself.  To  follow  another's  deductive  discussion  is  not  to 
reason  deductively;  it  is  not  necessarily  reasoning  at  all. 

High-school  geometry  furnishes  the  best  illustration  of  the 
deductive  method.  The  learner  starts  with  the  theorem  and  is 
asked  to  prove  the  truth  or  falsity  of  it.  If  he  works  out  the 
course  of  reasoning  for  himself  he  reasons  deductively.  If  he 
memorizes  the  printed  discussion  he  follows  a  deductive  method, 
but  he  does  not  necessarily  reason.  The  fact  that  the  discussions 
are  fully  written  out  in  most  text-books  on  geometry  militates 
against  securing  the  most  efficient  work  in  reasoning.  The  plan 
of  the  books  fosters  pure  verbal  memorizing.  If  only  a  few 
hints  were  given  much  better  thinking  would  be  stimulated. 
The  "original  exercises"  are  usually  the  best  part  of  the  books, 
but  too  often  omitted. 

Although  deductive  methods  are  more  easily  apparent  in 
geometry  than  in  other  subjects,  yet  they  are  continually  being 
employed  elsewhere.  Whenever  definitions,  laws,  and  principles 
are  stated  and  then  tested,  or  when  applications  are  made  of  the 
laws  and  principles  the  deductive  method  is  used.  Grammar 
has  most  usually  been  taught  by  this  method.  Latin  and  Greek 
are  quite  universally  taught  deductively.  In  American  schools 
the  modern,  foreign  languages  have  generally  been  taught  by  the 
translation  method,  which  is  deductive  in  its  approach.  The 
pupil  learns  his  definitions  and  rules,  and  then  applies  them  to 
the  particular  words.  Algebra  and  arithmetic  have  been  taught 
more  deductively  than  inductively,  but  even  more  as  a  matter 
of  memory  and  by  rule-of-thumb  methods.  Both  of  the  subjects 


632  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

are  excellent  instruments  for  utilizing  reasoning  processes,  but 
when  a  rule  is  followed  blindly,  reasoning  is  used  only  meagrely. 
Neither  induction  nor  deduction  should  be  followed  exclu- 
sively in  any  subject.  The  foundations  should  always  be  laid 
inductively.  Induction  is  a  method  of  discovery,  of  investiga- 
tion; deduction  a  method  of  testing,  of  proof,  of  application. 
After  principles,  laws,  hypotheses,  conclusions  have  been  derived 
through  a  personal  examination  of  particulars,  they  should  be 
carefully  tested  and  proven  either  valid  or  incorrect.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  teach  sciences  by  inductive  methods  alone.  Induc- 
tion without  deduction  tends  to  lead  learners  to  jump  to  con- 
clusions. They  develop  a  commendable  habit  of  making  inde- 
pendent observations,  but  the  observations  are  apt  to  be  loose 
and  inaccurate.  When  deductive  methods  only  are  employed, 
the  learner  is  apt  to  become  absorbed  in  logical  abstractions, 
too  much  inclined  to  reason  out  conclusions  from  insufficient 
data.  The  middle-age  scholasticism  was  characterized  by  the 
excessive  use  of  the  deductive  methods  and  a  meagreness  of 
investigation.  The  reasoning  was  correct  and  fine-spun,  but 
often  based  on  unsound  premises.  The  combined  use  of  both 
methods  characterizes  all  good  teaching  and  all  effective  study. 
In  advanced  classes  the  deductive  approach  often  seems  to 
characterize  most  of  the  work,  while  in  reality  the  approach 
is  also  inductive  because  the  students  have  formerly  gathered 
so  many  individual  ideas  that  they  need  but  to  form  or  perfect 
their  generalizations  from  the  individual  data.  This  is  true 
in  such  subjects  as  economics,  institutional  history,  and  psy- 
chology.1 

1  For  further  discussion  of  induction  and  deduction,  see,  De  Garmo,  Principles 
of  Secondary  Education,  vol.  II;  Bagley,  The  Educative  Process;  McMurry, 
The  Elements  of  General  Method  ;  McMurry,  The  Method  of  the  Recitation. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION 

Meaning  of  Feeling.— The  word  feeling  is  used  in  a  popular 
sense  and  in  a  technical  sense.  We  must  distinguish  carefully 
between  the  two  meanings.  When  one  says,  "I  feel  cold";  "I 
feel  the  wind  blowing  upon  me";  "I  feel  the  contact  of  my  pen 
upon  my  skin" ;  "  I  feel  the  weight  pressing  down  upon  me,"  etc., 
he  does  not  use  the  term  feeling  in  a  strict  psychological  sense. 
He  means  rather  that  he  has  experienced  sensations,  of  cold, 
contact,  touch,  weight,  etc.  "I  sense  it"  or  "I  perceive  it" 
would  be  more  accurate  expressions.  But  the  expression  "I 
feel,"  much  like  the  expression  "learning  by  heart,"  has  come 
to  us  traditionally,  and  like  many  traditions  it  is  difficult  of  dis- 
lodgment.  When  one  says,  "It  feels  painful,"  "It  feels  pleas- 
ant," "I  feel  sad,"  "I  feel  happy,"  "His  heart  throbs  with 
patriotic  feelings,"  etc.,  the  expressions  are  being  used  to  denote 
a  different  mental  state  from  the  ones  indicated  in  the  beginning 
of  this  paragraph.  The  word  in  the  former  referred  to  percep- 
tion, to  intellectual  processes.  That  is,  it  was  incorrectly  used 
to  designate  ideas  gained  through  the  sensation  of  touch.  In 
the  latter  cases  it  refers  not  to  sensations  or  perceptions,  but  to 
the  pleasure  or  repugnance  connected  with  those  intellectual 
states.  Hence  we  may  define  feeling  as  the  simple,  pleasurable 
or  painful  side  of  any  simple  mental  state;  or,  as  Sully  has  ex- 
pressed it,  "feeling  marks  off  the  pleasure-and-pain  'tone'  or 
aspect  of  experience." 

The  lower  forms  of  feeling  are  difficult  to  distinguish  from 
sensations.  For  example,  in  hunger  just  what  is  sensation  and 
what  is  feeling  ?  The  distinction  must  be  personally  experienced, 
"felt,"  in  order  to  be  appreciated.  No  formal  word  definition 
will  make  it  clear.  In  the  realm  of  the  higher  feelings  or  emo- 

633 


634  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

tions  it  is  easy  to  distinguish  between  feelings  and  sensations 
proper.  For  example,  a  feeling  of  patriotism  or  even  of  fear 
or  anger  would  never  be  confused  with  a  sensation.  It  is  only 
when  we  come  to  the  lower  feelings  or  those  which  are  largely 
physical  that  they  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  from  sensations. 
But  certain  selected  examples  will  probably  bring  out  a  distinc- 
tion which  may  be  appreciated.  Suppose  we  listen  to  a  saw 
being  filed,  or  that  we  draw  a  rusty  nail  through  our  teeth,  or 
touch  a  slimy  snake,  or  allow  an  insect  to  crawl  over  the  skin. 
We  experience  the  sensation  of  contact,  but  over  and  above  and 
distinct  from  the  sensation  is  a  feeling  of  disagreeableness. 
This  something  is  more  than  knowledge  giving,  it  is  affective,  it 
is  repugnant.  I  look  at  a  beautiful  picture,  or  witness  a  noble 
deed,  and  I  experience  a  something  not  merely  knowledge  giving 
or  intellectual,  I  am  pleased.  This  affective  state  is  a  complex 
feeling,  really  an  emotion,  which  is  later  denned. 

Professor  Titchener  has  given  us  one  of  the  clearest  discussions 
that  we  have  of  the  distinction  between  feelings  and  sensations 
and  which  I  venture  to  reproduce.  He  writes:  "Let  us  intro- 
spect a  true  feeling,  say,  the  feeling  of  drowsiness — and  convince 
ourselves  that  it  is  made  up  of  sensation  and  affection.  Drowsi- 
ness begins,  on  the  sensation  side,  with  a  sensation  of  pressure 
on  the  upper  eyelids,  with  a  tickling  in  the  throat  that  leads  to 
yawning  and  so  brings  a  complex  of  muscular  sensations,  and 
with  a  sensation  of  pressure  at  the  back  of  the  neck  (the  head 
droops).  The  lids  grow  constantly  heavier;  breathing  gets 
slower  and  deeper,  so  that  its  sensations  change;  the  lower  jaw 
becomes  heavy,  so  that  the  mouth  opens  and  the  chin  falls  for- 
ward on  the  breast  (pressure  sensations);  the  neck  sensations 
become  stronger,  the  head  heavier;  and  lastly  the  limbs  grow 
heavy,  and  arrange  themselves  by  their  own  weight.  Sensations 
of  temperature  come  from  the  surface  of  the  skin,  thrills  of 
warmth  running  their  course  at  different  parts  of  limbs  and 
trunk.  Over  all  this  mass  of  sensation  is  spread  an  affection; 
an  easy,  comfortable  pleasantness.  And  the  affection  outweighs 
the  sensation;  we  know  better  that  we  'feel  comfortable'  than 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION        635 

that  sensations  are  coming  in  from  this  or  that  organ.  The 
total  process  then  has  all  the  marks  of  a  true  feeling."  l 

In  each  of  the  cases  the  feeling  seems  to  be  a  physical  process, 
though  of  course  mental.  These  states  seem  altogether  different 
from  those  represented  by  the  expressions  "I  remember,"  "I 
know,"  "I  judge,"  or  "I  comprehend."  All  comparatively 
simple  affective  states  seem  closely  associated  with  physical 
processes.  They  also  seem  quite  definitely  localizable.  But 
when  I  say  I  remember,  I  do  not  localize  it;  in  fact  I  dissoci- 
ate it  from  my  body.  The  same  is  true  of  the  states  repre- 
sented by  the  expressions,  "I  feel  sad,"  "I  feel  remorse,"  "I 
feel  hatred,"  "I  feel  pity,"  etc.  For  the  simple,  elementary, 
affective  states  we  will  reserve  the  name  feelings,  and  to  the 
more  complex  and  seemingly  "more  mental"  ones  we  will  apply 
the  term  emotions. 

Meaning  of  Emotion. — An  emotion  is  the  complex,  agreeable 
or  painful  side  of  any  mental  state.  This  correctly  implies  that 
emotions  are  not  different  in  kind  from  feelings,  but  merely 
different  in  degree.  As  sense  feelings  are  concomitants  of  sen- 
sations and  simple  perceptions,  likewise  emotions  arise  in  con- 
nection with  higher  and  more  complex  intellection.  Mere  sensa- 
tions or  perceptions,  such  as  looking  at  colors  or  symbols  or 
being  cut  by  a  knife,  cannot  arouse  concomitant  emotions. 
They  may  arouse  feelings  of  pain.  When  we  apperceive  the 
import  of  symbols  which  convey  some  associational  knowledge, 
such  as  a  telegram  might  bring,  we  may  be  aroused  to  the  deep- 
est emotion  of  grief  or  the  highest  ecstasy  of  joy.  A  good  din- 
ner, warm  clothing,  a  good  fire,  produce  sensations  and  pleasur- 
able bodily  feelings,  but  in  themselves  they  cannot  arouse 
emotions.  They  may  suggest  higher  thoughts  and  these  in  turn 
may  be  accompanied  by  emotions.  Titchener  has  expressed 
these  relations  in  a  very  convenient  formula,  which  I  shall 
slightly  modify:2 


Sensations  :  Feelings  :  : 


Complex 
Intellectual 


:  Emotions 


States 
1  A  Primer  of  Psychology,  p.  61.  ~  Op.  cit.,  p    141. 


636  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

It  should  not  be  understood  that  there  is  an  absolute  line  of 
demarcation  between  feelings  and  emotions.  Sense  feelings 
doubtless  enter  into  the  most  highly  developed  emotions  much 
more  than  we  are  aware  of.  The  qualitative  genetic  relation 
is  all  that  is  intended  in  the  equation.  This  relationship  is  full 
of  pedagogical  significance.  Only  a  well-developed  intellect  can 
experience  profound  emotions.  Sometimes  there  are  outward 
manifestations  of  deep  emotions,  e.  #.,  love,  fidelity,  or  religious 
emotion,  in  persons  of  low  intelligence,  but  they  are  not  real. 
Instead  of  being  the  accompaniment  of  profound  conviction 
deliberately  arrived  at,  they  are  largely  imitative  outward  ex- 
pressions and  often  belong  to  egoistic  sense  feelings. 

Bodily  Accompaniments  of  Feelings  and  Emotions. — The  emo- 
tions when  of  sufficient  intensity  are  accompanied  by  certain 
bodily  changes.  There  is  usually  some  facial  expression  indicat- 
ing the  character  of  the  emotion.  The  whole  bodily  attitude 
also  usually  lends  itself  to  the  expression  of  the  emotions  if  they 
are  intense.  Facial  expression  and  bodily  postures  are  such 
infallible  indexes  of  the  state  of  feeling  that  we  can  even  deter- 
mine in  many  animals  whether  the  emotion  is  anger  or  pleasure. 
The  flashing  eye,  knotted  forehead,  contracted  eyebrows,  and 
curling  lip  are  absolutely  indicative  of  anger,  while  the  opposite 
conditions  betoken  pleasure.  So  close  is  the  relationship  that 
Darwin  wrote  a  volume  on  the  physical  expression  of  the 
emotions. 

We  also  have  evidence  of  emotions  in  the  condition  of  the 
pulse.  In  general  pleasure  quickens,  while  sorrow  retards  the 
circulation.  Blushing  and  pallor  indicate  circulatory  conditions 
and  betray  the  state  of  the  emotions.  A  change  of  circulation 
modifies  the  respiration  and  thus  we  have  an  added  datum  in 
detecting  emotional  states.  In  joy  the  breathing  is  deepened; 
when  sorrowing  the  respiration  is  weakened  and  usually  shorter. 
We  are  undoubtedly  stronger  during  pleasurable  emotions  than 
when  depressed.  Under  pleasurable  excitement  we  are  also 
said  to  be  larger  or  to  "expand,"  while  when  displeased  we 
"shrink  into  ourselves"  because  the  blood  is  withdrawn  to  the 
internal  organs. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         637 

Not  only  is  the  affected  circulation  evidenced  by  blushing  or 
pallor,  but  an  examination  of  the  heart  reveals  that  its  beats  are 
often  greatly  changed  in  intensity  as  well  as  in  rapidity.  The 
beats  of  a  "cold  heart"  are  slow  and  quiet,  while  in  a  "warm 
heart"  they  are  the  opposite.  It  is  no  fiction  to  speak  of  a 
heart  broken  by  grief.  Sudden  joy  may  sometimes  produce 
similar  results.  In  either  case  nervous  conditions  producing 
syncope  are  brought  about.  Palpitation,  or  rapidity  of  beat 
with  low  intensity,  is  often  a  result  of  strong  or  sudden  emotion. 
So  closely  related  to  the  most  striking  psychical  states  is  the 
condition  of  the  heart,  that  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how 
it  has  come  to  be  spoken  of  as  the  seat  of  the  emotions.  Sym- 
pathetically through  the  nervous  action  the  entire  system  may 
be  disturbed.  All  know  that  sorrow,  fear,  or  even  joy  may  pro- 
duce a  flow  of  tears,  that  fear  and  other  emotions  may  induce 
sudden  perspiration,  that  fear  may  produce  clamminess,  or  even 
paralysis,  etc. 

The  Lange- James  Theory  of  the  Emotions. — That  a  change  of 
emotional  tone  might  be  produced  by  receiving  good  or  bad 
news  every  one  would  readily  grant.  That  there  might  also  be 
produced  pallor  or  blushing,  trembling  or  rigidity  of  muscles, 
heat  or  clamminess,  quickened  respiration,  visceral  disturbances, 
etc.,  no  one  would  question.  That  is,  every  one  recognizes  the 
interrelation  of  intellectual  processes,  affective  tones,  and  bodily 
changes.  But  suppose  we  raise  the  question  as  to  the  order  of 
genesis  of  the  three  states  we  shall  not  find  unanimity  of 
opinion.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  remark  that  the  one  who  is 
bound  down  by  grief  is  pale,  often  emaciated,  and  anaemic. 
The  sequence  in  which  these  states  follow  each  other  is  thought 
to  be  very  direct  and  simple.  "Of  course,"  the  popular  mind 
says,  "  we  gain  a  piece  of  sad  news,  we  are  sorry,  and  then  we 
become  depressed,  pale,  and  anaemic." 

Professor  James  explains  the  interpretation  made  by  the 
uncritical  mind  in  the  following:  "Common  sense  says,  we  lose 
our  fortune,  are  sorry  and  weep;  we  meet  a  bear,  are  frightened 
and  run;  we  are  insulted  by  a  rival,  are  angry  and  strike." 


638  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

That  is,  "common  sense"  asserts  that  the  sequence  is  as  follows: 
(i)  The  knowledge-giving  state.  (2)  The  emotion.  (3)  The 
changes  of  bodily  condition.  Not  so,  however,  say  Lange  and 
James.  According  to  their  view  the  order  is:  (i)  The  knowl- 
edge-giving state.  (2)  The  changes  of  bodily  condition.  (3) 
The  emotion.  Or  as  Ribot  states  the  case:  "  First  an  intellect- 
ual state,  then  organic  and  motor  disturbance,  and  then  the 
consciousness  of  these  disturbances,  which  is  the  psychic  state 
we  call  emotion."  1 

James  maintains  in  his  theory  that  "the  bodily  changes  follow 
directly  the  perception  of  the  exciting  fact,  and  that  our  feeling  of 
the  same  changes  as  they  occur  is  the  emotion."  He  believes  it 
is  rational  to  say  "that  we  feel  sorry  because  we  cry,  angry 
because  we  strike,  afraid  because  we  tremble,  and  not  that  we 
cry,  strike,  or  tremble,  because  we  are  sorry,  angry,  or  fearful,  as 
the  case  may  be.  Without  the  bodily  states  following  on  the 
perception,  the  latter  would  be  purely  cognitive  in  form,  pale, 
colorless,  destitute  of  emotional  warmth.  We  might  then  see 
the  bear,  and  judge  it  best  to  run,  receive  the  insult  and  deem 
it  right  to  strike,  but  we  should  not  actually  feel  afraid  or  angry." ; 

The  Lange-James  Theory  Considered. — It  may  be  objected 
that  were  the  theory  correct  then  the  assumption  of  the  attitudes 
ordinarily  taken  in  a  given  emotion  would  produce  the  emotion 
itself.  To  illustrate,  an  actor  going  through  the  representation 
of  an  emotion  would  feel  the  emotion  itself.  In  case  of  the  por- 
trayal of  anger,  revenge,  the  emotions  of  the  villain,  etc.,  this 
might  entail  disastrous  results  because  of  the  reflex  effects  upon 
the  actor.  In  case  of  the  portrayal  of  love  it  might,  to  say  the 
least,  often  become  embarrassing.  The  testimony  of  actors 
varies.  Some  corroborate  the  theory  by  asserting  that  they  can 
not  play  a  part  properly  until  they  have  entered  completely  into 
the  emotions  portrayed.  They  say  that  until  one  lives  his  part 
he  cannot  successfully  act  it.  Miss  Isabel  Bateman  says:  "I 
often  turn  pale  in  scenes  of  terror  and  great  excitement.  I  have 

1  The  Psychology  of  the  Emotions,  p.  95. 
3  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  p.  449. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION         639 

been  told  this  many  times,  and  I  can  feel  myself  getting  very  cold 
and  shivering  and  pale  in  thrilling  situations."  "When  I  am 
playing  rage  or  terror,"  writes  Mr.  Lionel  Brough,  "I  believe  I 
do  turn  pale.  My  mouth  gets  dry,  my  tongue  cleaves  to  my 
palate.  In  Bob  Acres,  for  instance  (in  the  last  act),  I  have  to 
continually  moisten  my  mouth,  or  I  shall  become  inarticulate. 
I  have  to  '  swallow  the  lump,'  as  I  call  it."  l  Even  in  cases  where 
the  actor  plays  a  part  and  does  not  feel  the  emotion  strongly,  it 
is  probable  that  it  is  felt  to  some  extent.  From  my  own  expe- 
rience I  cannot  conceive  it  otherwise.  When  the  emotion  is 
not  felt  strongly  it  is  probably  because  there  is  such  a  difference 
between  belief  and  make-believe.  That  is,  in  acting  the  intel- 
lectual state  of  belief  is  not  really  experienced.  Were  this 
factor  experienced,  unquestionably  the  other  accompaniments 
would  result.  Could  one  be  deluded  into  belief  that  the  insult, 
the  necessity  for  revenge,  and  the  other  stage  acts  were  real 
then  the  concomitant  bodily  actions  would  be  in  evidence. 
Such  conditions  are  actually  produced  in  hypnotism.  As  before 
pointed  out,  belief  that  they  are  being  burned  causes  the  sub- 
jects to  feel  the  pain.  Belief  that  they  will  'suffer  no  pain  in 
having  teeth  extracted  removes  all  painful  feelings.  Such  belief 
is  seldom  experienced  by  the  actor  or  by  one  mimicking  the 
expression  of  some  emotion.  If  the  hypnotized  subject  is 
placed  in  any  attitude  as  of  prayer  or  anger  the  corresponding 
emotion  is  produced. 

It  is  the  series  of  visceral  organic  changes  which  Lange  and 
James  contend  is  the  precursor  of  the  emotion.  Though  the 
outward  expressions  are  intimately  related  with  the  emotion  the 
attitudes  assumed  in  given  emotions  are  somewhat  continual 
and  all  have  become  modified  through  long  volitional  control. 
Grinding  the  teeth,  though  the  primitive  reaction  in  anger,  is 
not  the  unfailing  accompaniment  of  anger  in  a  well-educated 
man.  His  anger  may  result  in  a  letter,  a  speech,  judicial  action, 
etc.  But  the  visceral  accompaniments  largely  beyond  the  con- 
trol of  the  will,  such  as  circulation,  respiration,  temperature,  or 

1  James,  op.  cit.,  II,  464. 


640  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

the  change  in  secretions,  are  much  more  absolutely  certain  ac- 
companiments of  a  genuine  emotion.  James  writes  on  this 
point:  "The  visceral  and  organic  part  of  the  expression  can  be 
suppressed  in  some  men,  but  not  in  others,  and  on  this  it  is 
probable  that  the  chief  part  of  the  felt  emotion  depends.  Coque- 
lin  and  the  other  actors  who  are  inwardly  cold  are  probably  able 
to  effect  the  dissociation  in  a  complete  way." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  a  part  of  the  actor's  work  is  to  learn  to 
express  what  he  does  not  feel.  But  it  is  doubtless  also  true  that 
an  actor  can  play  certain  r61es  much  better  than  others  simply 
because  there  is  consonance  between  his  temperament  and  the 
part  assigned.  In  fact,  many  claim  that  until  he  does  live  the 
part  he  cannot  play  it.  Stanley  has  shown  how  completely  we 
may  gain  control  over  the  expression  of  emotions.  He  writes: 1 
"When  the  will  attains  control  over  expression  we  may  not 
merely  repress  the  impulse  to  expression  when  we  feel  strongly, 
but  having  no  feeling  of  a  given  kind,  we  may  voluntarily  adopt 
its  expression,  and  this  adoption  of  the  expression  very  often 
leads  by  association  to  the  real  feeling.  Again,  when  experi- 
encing a  feeling  we  may  simulate  the  expression  of  another  or 
even  opposite  feeling.  It  is  often  advantageous  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  to  throw  others  off  their  guard  by  deceiving  them 
as  to  the  real  emotional  state;  hence,  craft  and  guile  have  from 
a  tolerably  early  stage  in  evolution  played  a  part  in  the  history 
of  life."  Even  animals  low  in  the  scale  of  life  learn  to  practise 
certain  deceits.  Animals'  play  often  reveals  this  shamming 
aspect.  They  frequently  tease  and  scare  each  other,  expressing 
one  state  and  evidently  feeling  another.  Children  delight  in 
similar  antics  and  tricks.  Doubtless  the  drama  itself  owes  much 
of  its  origin  to  this  desire  to  masquerade  which  the  child  in 
recapitulating  race  development  so  instinctively  learns  to  prac- 
tise in  his  play.  But  to  grant  this  does  not  mean  a  capitulation 
of  the  former  view.  It  still  remains  true  that  the  greater  the 
harmony  between  the  ideal  and  the  actor,  the  more  perfect  the 
art. 

1  Evolutionary  Psychology  of  Feeling,  p.  363. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION        641 

It  takes  no  acute  psychological  observation  to  note  that  an 
emotion  once  initiated  is  greatly  increased  by  giving  way  to  the 
outward  manifestations  of  it.  To  bow  one's  head  when  already 
suffering  grief  lowers  one's  vitality  and  increases  the  grief.  To 
be  sure,  nursing  the  grief  through  contemplating  its  cause  is  one 
source  of  its  production,  but  undoubtedly  the  bowed  head,  the 
curved  spine,  the  lowered  eyelids,  the  drawn  lips  all  are  causes 
as  well  as  effects.  Who  could  feel  any  enthusiasm  in  giving  the 
college  yell  when  sitting  down  and  with  head  bowed  low  in 
reverential  attitude?  At  the  foot-ball  game  one's  excitement 
increases  largely  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  noise  and 
motion  he  makes.  It  is  bad  pedagogy  to  try  to  secure  enthusiasm 
by  restricting  bodily  movement.  Soldiers  hear  the  quick-step 
march,  their  pace  quickens  and  their  courage  rises  simultane- 
ously. The  influence  of  music  in  war  is  tremendous.  Let  the 
soldiers  hear  a  funeral  dirge.  Their  pace  slackens  and  their 
spirits  fall.  "  Every  one  knows  how  panic  is  increased  by  flight, 
and  how  the  giving  way  to  the  symptoms  of  grief  or  anger  in- 
creases those  passions  themselves.  Each  fit  of  sobbing  makes 
the  sorrow  more  acute,  and  calls  forth  another  fit  stronger  still, 
until  at  last  repose  only  ensues  with  lassitude  and  with  the  ap- 
parent exhaustion  of  the  machinery.  In  rage,  it  is  notorious 
how  we  'work  ourselves  up'  to  a  climax  by  repeated  outbreaks 
of  expression.  Refuse  to  express  a  passion,  and  it  dies.  Count 
ten  before  venting  your  anger,  and  its  occasion  seems  ridiculous. 
Whistling  to  keep  up  courage  is  no  mere  figure  of  speech.  On 
the  other  hand,  sit  all  day  in  a  moping  posture,  sigh,  and  reply 
to  everything  with  a  dismal  voice,  and  your  melancholy  lingers. 
There  is  no  more  valuable  precept  in  moral  education  than  this, 
as  all  who  have  experienced  know:  if  we  wish  to  conquer  unde- 
sirable emotional  tendencies  in  ourselves,  we  must  assiduously, 
and  in  the  first  instance  cold-bloodedly,  go  through  the  outward 
movements  of  those  contrary  dispositions  which  we  prefer  to 
cultivate.  The  reward  of  persistency  will  infallibly  come,  in 
the  fading  out  of  the  sullenness  or  depression,  and  the  advent  of 
real  cheerfulness  and  kindliness  in  their  stead.  Smooth  the 


642  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

brow,  brighten  the  eye,  contract  the  dorsal  rather  than  the 
ventral  aspect  of  the  frame,  and  speak  in  a  major  key,  pass  the 
genial  compliment,  and  your  heart  must  be  frigid  indeed  if  it 
do  not  gradually  thaw!"  1 

Although  I  do  not  subscribe  to  the  Lange- James  theory  in 
its  entirety,  yet  I  recognize  many  facts  which  go  to  show  that  the 
various  bodily  conditions  have  a  very  marked  influence  upon  the 
feelings.  One  with  biliousness  cannot  easily  feel  in  a  happy 
mood.  Our  general  attitude  toward  life  is  strongly  colored  by 
the  state  of  our  health.  With  sound  bodies  and  good  digestion 
all  the  world  is  apt  to  appear  roseate.  But  a  poor  night's  rest 
or  an  unusual  ache  is  most  sure  to  give  it  a  most  sombre  tint. 
There  is  undoubtedly  a  very  definite  interrelation  among  the 
three  states— knowledge,  emotion,  action.  They  are  probably 
three  inseparable  phases  of  every  complex  psycho-physical  state, 
and  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  be  entirely  isolated.  Sometimes 
one  phase  may  preponderate,  sometimes  another.  The  exercise 
of  any  one  undoubtedly  influences  each  of  the  others.  An 
exhaustive  discussion  of  the  theoretical  aspects  of  the  question 
will  not  be  attempted  in  this  connection.  The  reader  who  is 
interested  may  refer  to  James,2  Lange,3  or  Ribot.4  A  few 
illustrations  will,  however,  be  adduced  to  show  the  exceedingly 
close  interdependence  between  the  emotions  and  the  physical 
expressions.  An  attempt  will  also  be  made  to  indicate  some 
of  the  many  very  important  educational  bearings. 

We  know  that  in  play-acting  when  assuming  a  given  character 
we  tend  to  feel  the  emotional  states  acted.  For  this  reason 
many  believe  it  dangerous  to  assume  the  role  of  a  rogue  or  a 
rascal.  Taking  the  role  of  a  noble  character  uplifts  one  and 
stirs  lofty  desires.  Undoubtedly  every  one  is  moved  emotionally 
by  assuming  an  attitude  of  prayer  or  devotion.  A  boy  whistles 
on  going  through  a  lonely  place  at  night,  and  thereby  feels  less 
afraid.  When  he  has  been  hurt  by  a  school-fellow  or  worsted 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  p.  462.  2  Op.  tit. 

3  Ueber  Gemitthsbe'wegtingen,  Leipsic,  1887. 

4  The  Psychology  of  the  Emotions. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION         643 

in  an  encounter,  he  laughs  a  bravado  laugh  though  ready  to  cry, 
and  thereby  dispels  the  desire  to  cry  and  manages  to  feel  courage, 
which  was  slipping  away.  We  tell  a  crying  child,  "Dry  your 
eyes  and  you'll  feel  better,"  rather  than,  "Feel  better  and  then 
your  tears  will  cease." 

Educational  Suggestions  from  the  Lange-James  Theory. — The 
educational  bearings  of  this  theory  are  manifold  and  far-reaching. 
Actions  and  states  constantly  repeated  determine  what  one  is. 
What  one  is  he  comes  to  believe  in  and  the  customary  usually 
becomes  pleasurable,  at  least  in  a  negative  way.  Consequently 
it  is  good  pedagogy  to  teach  children,  for  example,  to  assume  an 
attitude  of  cheerfulness,  to  sit  up  straight,  to  expand  the  lungs, 
to  walk  sprightly,  to  have  a  good  laugh  occasionally.  It  all 
reacts  upon  their  moods.  For  a  person  to  go  bent  over  with  his 
back  humped  up  and  his  chest  drawn  in  is  sufficient  reason  for 
him  to  become  low-spirited.  Plenty  of  oxygen,  sufficient  muscu- 
lar exercise,  and  good  bodily  postures  and  habits  are  not  only 
conducive  to  but  absolutely  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of 
cheerfulness.  The  one  who  becomes  anaemic  and  nerveless  is 
the  one  who  is  irritable  and  cross.  Many  external  conditions 
contribute  not  a  little  to  one's  emotional  tone.  The  weather 
determines,  more  than  we  think,  the  trend  of  one's  conduct. 
Poor  lighting  is  often  responsible  for  not  only  defective  vision 
and  bad  headaches,  but  also  for  much  peevishness.  Because  of 
the  intimate  relations  existing  between  the  feelings  and  the 
intellectual  and  volitional  states  it  is  important  for  the  educator 
constantly  to  bear  in  mind  the  necessity  of  securing  bodily 
comfort  and  emotional  buoyancy.  Heating,  lighting,  ventila- 
tion all  have  their  effects.  Proper  seating  is  a  feature  too  little 
considered.  Cramped  positions  or  dangling  feet  produce  irrita- 
bility to  say  nothing  of  bodily  malformations.  Recesses,  alter- 
nation of  work  and  play  must  also  be  considered  in  trying  to 
secure  desirable  emotional  attitudes. 

Through  imitation  one  unconsciously  assumes  the  attitudes 
of  those  about  him.  Consequently  imitation  plays  a  most  im- 
portant part  in  the  determination  of  the  feelings.  A  light- 


644  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

hearted  person  diffuses  his  feelings  among  all  whom  he  meets. 
Similarly  one  who  is  low-spirited  casts  a  spell  of  gloom  over  all 
his  associates.  Feelings  are  even  more  contagious  than  disease. 
Children  are  very  quick  to  be  inoculated  with  the  moods  af- 
fecting the  teacher.  On  those  days  when  children  are  bad- 
natured,  fretful,  or  especially  trying,  the  cause  can  usually  be 
traced  to  some  external  influence — bad  weather,  an  irritable 
teacher,  improper  lighting,  insufficient  nutrition,  physical  dis- 
comfort, etc. 

One  of  the  most  potent  means  of  promoting  good  tone  is 
through  song.  This  is  largely  true  because  song  necessitates 
attitudes  and  expressions  of  cheerfulness.  This  means  is  not 
sufficiently  utilized.  Instead  of  having  the  children  lift  up  their 
hearts  and  voices  in  sprightly  song,  and  in  simple  melodies 
expressive  of  beautiful  sentiments,  the  little  children  are  often 
set  to  learning  the  science  of  music  !  Desirable  as  knowledge  of 
the  science  of  music  may  be  at  a  later  age,  it  has  no  place  in 
a  child's  course  of  education.  Song  and  poetry  should  be  a 
means  of  emotional  quickening,  and  this  they  cannot  be  if  made 
a  mere  intellectual  gymnastic.  The  science  of  music,  the  science 
of  grammar,  the  science  of  rhetoric,  should  be  deferred  until  long 
after  the  child's  soul  has  felt  the  beauties  of  music  and  speech. 
His  soul  should  have  been  stirred  to  its  depth  by  the  harmonies 
of  tone,  and  the  noblest  of  human  sentiments  awakened,  long 
before  he  is  able  to  analyze  the  formal  means  of  expressing  them. 
It  is  indeed  pathetic  to  go  into  a  school-room  where  the  children 
are  mechanically  learning  to  name  musical  symbols,  and  in  an 
equally  mechanical  way  to  ticket  the  parts  of  speech,  when  they 
have  never  been  made  to  thrill  with  emotion  through  the  singing 
of  beautiful  songs,  or  the  hearing  of  literary  masterpieces  read 
by  a  skilful  teacher.  Upon  every  hand  there  is  so  much 
tendency  to  mechanization.  In  the  attempt  to  reduce  every- 
thing to  system  no  teaching  is  deemed  of  worth  that  does  not 
issue  in  an  examinable  product.  We  can  examine  a  child  to 
see  if  he  can  write  the  tonic  sol  fa  scale,  but  who  can  tell  whether 
a  child  stands  80  per  cent,  or  92  per  cent,  in  his  emotional  striv-. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION         645 

ings?  In  our  search  for  intellectual  examination  material  we 
often  starve  the  nobler  emotions. 

Relation  Between  Exercise  and  Feelings. — Pleasurable  feeling 
is  usually  the  accompaniment  of  the  normal,  moderate  use  of  the 
body  or  of  the  mind.  Excessive  use  produces  over-stimulation. 
Pain  or  fatigue  are  the  results  which  signal  a  cessation  of  exer- 
cise. The  child  who  is  given  healthful  bodily  and  mental  exer- 
cises finds  them  pleasurable  and  exhilarating.  No  healthy 
child  desires  inactivity.  He  is  continually  moving  about  and 
making  investigations.  One  who  follows  a  healthy  normal  child 
about  for  a  day  or  an  hour  will  be  ready  to  agree  that  over- 
flowing energy  and  ceaseless  activity  are  among  his  most  promi- 
nent characteristics.  Allowed  to  take  their  own  pace  and  to 
flit  about  as  curiosity  prompts  and  interest  sustains,  normal, 
healthy  children  are  happy  and  active  from  morning  till  night. 
If  artificially  pushed  to  excess  in  any  one  direction  or  not  al- 
lowed diversity  of  occupation  they  lose  pleasure,  and  become 
peevish  and  fretful.  Thus  we  may  formulate  the  law  that 
pleasure  is  conditioned  upon  a  normal  activity  along  the  lines 
of  spontaneous  activity,  and  upon  a  sufficient  diversity  to  pre- 
clude monotony. 

Inactivity  except  as  a  means  of  rest  cannot  produce  pleasure. 
In  any  case  it  is  negative  rather  than  positive.  The  child 
obliged  to  sit  absolutely  still  is  a  most  unhappy  child.  To 
require  a  child  to  do  so  for  long  at  a  time  is  positively  sinful. 
The  schools  must  recognize  this  fundamental  demand  for  health- 
ful activity.  The  most  quiet  school  may  be  the  very  worst 
managed.  The  children  should  not  sit  for  very  long  periods, 
and  not  in  unnatural  positions.  Mentally  they  must  be 
provided  with  something  to  occupy  their  attention- — not  mere 
"busy  work,"  but  something  that  appeals  and  is  worth  while. 
How  often  the  peevish  child  in  the  home  can  be  emotionally 
transformed  by  simply  helping  him  to  find  something  to  do! 
How  many  sins  of  omission  can  be  charged  up  to  the  home 
because  of  ignorance  of  this  relation  between  activity  and  happi- 
ness! Many  boys  and  girls  have  gone  to  ruin,  simply  for  lack  of 


646  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

something  to  do.  "Satan  finds  some  mischief  still  for  idle 
hands  to  do,"  and  "an  idle  brain  is  the  devil's  workshop." 

Esthetic  Emotions  are  evidently  very  deep-seated,  for  we  find 
that  they  are  not  at  all  peculiar  to  man.  Romanes  and  Darwin 
claim  that  birds  are  the  first  in  the  scale  of  evolution  to  possess 
these  affective  states.  They  must  be  well  developed,  however, 
in  birds,  as  many  species  of  birds  are  very  highly  decorated  and 
seem  to  take  a  pleasure  in  displaying  and  observing  the  decora- 
tions. Darwin  says:  "  When  we  behold  a  male  bird  elaborately 
displaying  his  graceful  plumes  or  splendid  colors  before  the 
female,  while  other  birds,  not  thus  decorated,  make  no  such 
display,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  she  admires  the  beauty  of 
her  male  partner."  *  He  says  that  humming-birds  and  others 
decorate  their  nests,  which  shows  that  they  must  derive  some 
kind  of  pleasure  from  it.  The  song  of  birds  must  also  have 
been  developed  through  preferences  for  certain  aesthetic  sounds. 
The  standards,  to  be  sure,  would  not  all  be  approved  by  well- 
developed  human  standards.  Is  it  not  probable  that  even  among 
fishes  and  reptiles  color  combinations  have  been  more  than 
merely  protective,  but  that  they  have  played  a  considerable  role 
in  sexual  selection?  The  lowest  savages  manifest  aesthetic 
emotions  in  their  preferences  for  certain  colors,  sounds,  and 
forms.  To  be  sure,  the  standards  would  not  frequently  be 
selected  by  civilized  people.  But  Darwin  says  in  the  foregoing 
connection,  that  "man  and  many  of  the  lower  animals  are  alike 
pleased  by  the  same  colors,  graceful  shading  and  forms,  and 
the  same  sounds." 

Music  has  its  beginnings  far  back  in  race  history.  The  sense 
of  rhythm  is  observable  in  many  lower  animals.  It  is  universal 
in  man.  The  dance  is  rhythmical  and  is  the  first  known  art. 
Music  was  developed  from  the  dance.  Powell  says:  "Rhythm 
was  born  of  the  dance,  melody  was  born  of  poetry,  harmony 
was  born  of  the  drama,  symphony  was  born  of  science."  Be- 
cause of  this  order  of  development  we  may  gather  a  hint  with 
reference  to  music  teaching  in  the  schools.  Rhythmic  bodily 
1  The  Descent  of  Man,  p.  104. 


EMOTIONAL   LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         647 

movements  as  in  the  dance  and  in  various  plays  should  precede 
systematic  training  in  music  as  a  science.  Music  as  an  art 
should  precede.  Simple  folk-songs  learned  by  ear  should  long 
precede  the  artificial  note-singing  of  the  school.  Music  should 
first  of  all  be  a  language  of  emotion  and  not  a  feat  of  intellectual 
analysis  and  synthesis.  Classical  music  is  a  product  of  science, 
an  evolution  of  intelligence,  and  not  alone  a  language  of  the 
emotions.  Music  should  be  taught  in  the  schools  for  the  pur- 
pose of  developing  good  cheer,  to  inspire  with  beautiful  senti- 
ments, to  uplift,  and  to  harmonize  the  soul.  The  songs  we  all 
love  most  are  not  those  termed  "classic";  no,  they  are  the 
simple  melodies  that  anybody  can  sing,  and  the  music  is  coupled 
with  words  which  touch  a  responsive  chord  in  every  heart.  One 
of  the  strongest  ties  that  bind  the  German  nation  together  to- 
day is  the  universal  custom  of  singing  the  folk-songs  and  national 
airs.  No  home  is  so  lowly  but  that  all  can  join  in  the  melodies 
and  thus  give  expression  to  sentiments  they  feel,  and  which  in 
turn  are  intensified.  How  often  I  have  witnessed  the  German 
soldiers  marching  merrily  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  their 
Exercirplatz  singing  some  of  the  inspiring  national  airs  like 
Die  Wacht  am  Rhein!  Their  work  is  hard,  dull,  and  monoto- 
nous; subordinates  are  held  in  strictest  subservience;  their  fare 
is  of  the  coarsest;  their  boots  of  the  heaviest;  their  comforts  the 
most  meagre;  the  prospects  the  most  uninspiring  (so  all  seemed 
to  me),  but  under  the  influence  of  these  songs,  buoyancy  of 
spirits  was  everywhere  evinced,  the  heavy  boots  appeared  to  be 
easily  lifted;  their  songs  rang  out  in  the  still  morning  air  with 
a  clearness  and  tone  of  fidelity  that  carried  me  in  imagination 
to  the  days  of  chivalry.  Doubtless  no  other  factor  contributes 
so  much  to  the  love  of  home  and  fatherland  as  the  songs  which 
are  constantly  upon  their  lips.  In  this  country  wre  have  not 
learned  the  value  of  song. 

Intellectual  Emotions. — By  intellectual  emotions  we  mean 
those  emotional  attitudes  which  are  felt  toward  intellectual  activ- 
ity. For  example,  one  may  experience  keen  delight  in  working 
out  one  lesson  and  the  greatest  distaste  in  accomplishing  another. 


648  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Different  attitudes  may  be  experienced  toward  the  same  task  at 
different  times  and  under  different  circumstances.  These  emo- 
tions have  an  instinctive  basis  and  the  earliest  manifestation  is 
in  the  form  of  curiosity.  There  are,  of  course,  various  grada- 
tions of  curiosity.  The  first  stage  is  that  of  surprise,  which 
makes  its  appearance  early  in  child-life.  Preyer  has  noted  it 
as  early  as  the  twenty-second  week.  There  is  perhaps  little 
mentality  connected  with  it,  but  the  shock  gives  rise  to  physio- 
logical changes  such  as  raising  the  eyebrows,  opening  wide  the 
eyes,  opening  the  mouth,  and  a  change  in  the  pulsation  of  the 
heart.  Animals  manifest  many  of  the  same  signs. 

A  higher  stage  is  that  of  wonder.  In  this  there  is  a  concen- 
tration of  attention  and  reflection  upon  what  is  experienced. 
Dogs,  horses,  deer,  monkeys,  and  other  animals  exhibit  wonder 
in  the  presence  of  strange  objects.  If  the  wonder  is  strong  it 
passes  into  inquisitiveness  or  interrogation,  as  Ribot  calls  it. 
There  is  then  an  attempt  to  solve  the  question.  The  dog  on 
seeing  a  strange  object  smells  it,  walks  around  it,  withdraws, 
ventures  to  touch  it,  withdraws  again,  and  thus  keeps  up  an 
investigation  of  his  own  sort  until  satisfied.  I  have  seen  a  dog 
thus  study  a  calf  for  a  half-hour.  Of  course,  there  must  be 
some  marks  of  familiarity  to  excite  wonder  and  curiosity. 
Totally  unfamiliar  objects  do  not  draw  the  attention  nor  excite 
curiosity. 

Surprise  and  astonishment  are  said  by  Sully  and  others  to  be 
akin  to  curiosity.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  they  have  much 
more  in  common  with  fear,  which  is  often  a  result  of  a  stoppage 
of  intellectual  workings.  The  mind  seems  balked  in  a  train  of 
thought  or  it  is  suddenly  awakened  to  a  new  kind  of  experience. 
Surprise  and  astonishment  have  little  of  the  pleasurable  element 
in  them.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  pain  of  arrest  which  makes 
them  clearly  allied  to  fear.  Tracy  mentions1  cases  of  surprise 
being  noticed  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  first  week  of  life.  One 
child  then  seemed  to  notice  his  own  fingers  attentively.  This 
is  rather  precocious.  "  From  this  time  onward,  wonder  is  con- 

1  Psychology  oj  Childhood,  p.  49. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE   AND   EDUCATION        649 

stantly  manifested  at  pictures  on  the  wall,  sunbeams  dancing  on 
the  floor,  the  fire  crackling  on  the  hearth,  and  especially  at  the 
movements  of  animate  beings.  The  infant  gazes  long  and 
steadily  at  these  strange  phenomena."  Infants  of  a  few  weeks 
old  stare  around  at  every  new  phenomenon  and  every  new 
face,  often  expressing  fear  at  those  things  which  are  strange. 

Preyer  noted  astonishment  in  his  child  in  the  twenty-second 
week.  One  of  my  own  children  on  the  thirteenth  day  started 
suddenly  when  she  heard  a  chirping  noise.  She  looked  around 
apparently  for  the  cause.  By  the  twenty-fourth  day  she  fol- 
lowed moving  objects  very  definitely.  At  that  age  she  watched 
a  swinging  rope  with  apparent  interest  for  some  time.  A  light 
was  always  looked  at  with  great  intensity.  In  the  fifth  month 
surprise  on  seeing  a  railway  engine  produced  such  a  degree  of 
surprise  that  it  developed  into  shuddering  fear.  By  the  twelfth 
or  the  fourteenth  week  the  child  can  sit  up,  if  supported,  and 
from  this  time  and  even  before  it  begins  to  grasp  objects  and  to 
handle  them  in  a  more  definite  way. 

Real  curiosity  is  early  manifest  and  develops  rapidly.  Taine 
wrote:  "Any  one  may  observe  that  from  the  fifth  or  sixth  month, 
children  employ  their  whole  time  for  two  years  or  more  in 
making  physical  experiments.  No  animal,  not  even  the  cat  or 
the  dog,  makes  this  constant  study  of  all  bodies  within  its  reach. 
All  day  long  the  child  of  whom  I  speak — twelve  months  old- 
touches,  feels,  turns  about,  lets  drop,  tastes,  and  experiments 
upon,  everything  she  gets  hold  of,  whatever  it  may  be — ball,  doll, 
coral,  or  plaything.  When  once  it  is  sufficiently  known,  she 
throws  it  aside;  it  is  no  longer  new;  she  has  nothing  further  to 
learn  from  it,  and  so  has  no  further  interest  in  it."  l 

The  little  child  is  said  to  be  mischievous  when  it  overhauls 
work-baskets,  pulls  down  books,  gets  into  cupboards,  tries 
doors,  disarranges  curtains,  picks  up  pins,  buttons,  and  dirt, 
but  it  is  merely  seeking  new  experiences.  It  tears,  picks  apart, 
and  smashes  not  always  to  find  out  the  mechanism  or  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  contrivance,  but  rather  to  gain  new  experiences  which 

1  Mind,  II,  p.  252. 


650  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

are  a  source  of  interest.  A  child  of  five  or  six  months  of  age 
will  frequently  drop  an  object  scores  of  times,  if  the  object  is 
picked  up  each  time,  just  to  see  what  will  happen.  He  strikes 
the  cup  on  the  table  with  a  spoon,  and  he  keeps  it  up  until  his 
senses  seem  satisfied.  It  is  much  the  same  with  fire-crackers 
on  a  Fourth  of  July,  a  new  whistle,  a  new  drum,  or  a  soldier-hat. 
The  experience  is  continued  as  long  as  it  gives  pleasurable  sense 
stimulation. 

Still  higher  than  this  curiosity  is  the  kind  exhibited  by  chil- 
dren when  they  try  to  find  out  how  things  are  made  or  how 
things  are  done.  Different  children  are  inquisitive  in  different 
directions.  One  is  inquisitive  about  dolls,  another  about  guns, 
another  about  carts  and  sleds,  and  others  about  machines,  birds, 
plants  or  gardening.  The  inquisitiveness  varies  at  different 
times  in  the  same  child:  one  day  it  is  a  toy,  the  next  a  journey, 
and  the  next  the  Christmas  holidays.  There  is  no  constancy 
of  inquiry  such  as  is  exhibited  by  the  scientist.  The  direction 
of  the  child's  curiosity  is  determined  by  chance  circumstances, 
environment,  and  direction,  as  well  as  by  natural  tastes. 

In  childish  curiosity  we  have  the  germ  of  future  scientific 
study.  Through  curiosity  the  child  spies  the  bird's  nest  and 
perhaps  pokes  it,  but  in  so  doing  learns  some  things  he  did  not 
know  before.  He  is  curious  to  know  how  things  came  to  be 
and  what  will  become  of  them.  He  wishes  to  know  the  use  of 
all  sorts  of  things  and  is  continually  asking  questions,  the 
answers  to  which  he  may  not  understand.  I  have  been  asked 
by  children  of  five  why  there  was  moss  on  one  side  of  the  trees, 
why  the  moon  kept  moving  at  the  same  rate  as  we  did,  which 
came  first  the  hen  or  the  egg,  what  makes  the  rain  in  the  clouds, 
and  thousands  of  other  questions  that  only  the  teacher  is  ever 
supposed  to  ask.  Now  in  these  questions  are  golden  oppor- 
tunities. The  child's  curiosity  should  be  satisfied  and  stimu- 
lated. He  should  be  answered  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  the 
knowledge  and  also  to  start  other  questions.  But  does  this 
accord  with  the  usual  practice  in  the  home  and  in  the  school- 
room? Far  too  frequently  the  child  is  silenced  by  rebukes 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION        651 

given  as  answers.  Relatively  seldom  is  he  answered  in  such  a 
way  as  to  show  him  that  many  answers  can  be  wrought  out  for 
himself.  At  best  the  information  is  dogmatic  in  nature,  fre- 
quently grudgingly  imparted,  and  seldom  provocative  of  thought. 
At  school  the  child  is  often  systematically  taught  to  consider 
only  dogmatic  statements.  He  learns  perfunctorily  what  is 
assigned  him  and  repeats  parrot-fashion  when  he  must  recite. 
The  lesson  period  instead  of  inviting  questions,  represses  them, 
and  the  child  gradually  learns  to  conceal  his  ignorance  as  much 
as  possible.  This  sometimes  comes  to  be  an  unwritten  law  even 
among  high-school  and  university  students,  and  the  inquisitive 
one  is  repressed  by  the  teacher  and  by  the  public  opinion  of  his 
fellows.  Even  among  students  in  higher  institutions  there  are 
too  few  who  are  sufficiently  independent  in  thought.  They  are 
too  often  satisfied  to  take  down  in  their  note-books  whatever  is 
dictated  and  then  deem  their  duty  performed  if  they  can  re- 
echo enough  to  secure  a  passing  grade  upon  it.  Instead  of  inde- 
pendent opinions  they  are  taught,  through  the  methods  pursued, 
to  gain  the  words,  the  garments  in  which  others'  opinions  are 
clothed.  Like  all  borrowed  clothing,  such  knowledge  exhibits 
monstrous  misfits.  This  is  a  sad  commentary  on  too  many 
schools.  Education  should  increase  curiosity  until  it  becomes 
scientific  investigation  rather  than  stifle  it  and  produce  scientific 
dumbness.  Ideally  the  pupil  should  be  the  principal  ques- 
tioner and  the  teacher  should  be  ready  to  lead  to  the  answer. 
The  teacher's  questions  should  be  given  largely  to  lead  the 
learner  to  ask  questions  for  himself.  When  the  student  has 
arrived  at  that  point  in  his  career  when  he  can  interrogate 
properly  and  persistently  he  is  no  longer  in  need  of  teachers. 
But  how  many  teachers  regard  their  office  differently!  To  fill 
up  the  mind  with  certain  traditional  square  yards  of  arithmetic, 
geography,  and  history  means  education  to  them.  Oftentimes 
it  produces  little  higher  educational  effect  than  that  exhibited 
by  the  parrot.  There  is  no  inquisitiveness,  no  initiative,  no 
independence  of  thought.  I  often  think  that  it  is  mainly  through 
their  non-school  experiences  that  students  have  gained  any 


652  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

independence  of  thought  at  all.  So  much  of  their  school  work 
has  been  like  prescriptions,  blindly  followed,  as  a  servant  does 
a  cook-book.  In  most  matters  better  an  erroneous  idea  if 
independent  than  the  correct  one  that  is  merely  the  hollow  echo 
of  an  opinion  taken  uncritically  from  another.  The  one  who 
is  critical  but  in  error  will  correct  his  errors,  but  the  echoist  is 
ever  in  dire  danger  of  repeating  the  errors  received  through 
absorption. 

Sympathy  means  a  condition  in  which  one  enters  into  the 
feelings  of  another,  sharing  the  pleasures  or  pains.  It  is  an 
emotion  of  rather  late  appearance.  Although  we  are  told  that 
it  exists  among  the  lower  animals,  it  is  there  of  a  very  low  order. 
Except  as  a  manifestation  of  maternal  instinct  in  the  animals 
we  find  little  indication  of  it.  Most  animals  leave  wounded  or 
disabled  comrades  to  their  hard  fate.  Romanes  believes  that 
sympathy  is  first  seen  among  the  hymenoptera.  He  places  its 
first  appearance  in  the  child  at  about  five  months.  Sigismund 
records  that  he  noticed  sympathy  at  the  end  of  three  months. 
Sully  and  Tiedemann  believe  that  they  have  noticed  it  as  early 
as  the  end  of  the  second  month.  But  these  instances  are  all 
cases  of  imitation  and  have  very  little  of  genuine  sympathy  in 
them.  One  child  will  cry  when  another  cries  or  sometimes  when 
it  hears  music,  but  it  is  questionable  how  far  the  feelings  are 
shared,  and  still  more  questionable  whether  there  is  a  desire 
to  enter  into  the  other's  feelings,  which  is  often  true  in  higher 
stages  of  sympathy.  At  two  years  and  ten  months  of  age  my 
boy  was  looking  at  a  picture  of  a  boy  crying,  and  said,  "  Boy 
haint  got  no  mudder."  I  answered,  "No,  the  boy  has  no 
mother,"  thinking  merely  to  coincide  with  his  expression.  He 
repeated  the  same  thing  again,  and  burst  into  tears  and  sobbed 
bitterly.  I  cannot  think  it  was  a  deeper  feeling  than  mere  con- 
tagion from  the  appearance  of  the  crying  child,  for  he  had 
absolutely  no  idea  of  the  import  of  what  he  said.  He  knew 
nothing  of  death  or  the  meaning  of  bereavement. 

To  really  sympathize  one  must  put  himself  in  another's  place. 
This  often  requires  imagination  of  the  other's  states.  To 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         653 

imagine  anything  one  must  have  had  a  previous  experience  of 
that  thing.  One  must  at  least  understand  the  conditions  pro- 
ducing the  affective  states  of  another  in  order  to  sympathize 
with  them.  Circumscribed  experiences  often  make  it  impossi- 
ble for  an  individual  to  have  broad  sympathies.  There  is 
nothing  that  gives  one  such  powers  for  usefulness  as  breadth  and 
variety  of  sympathies.  No  person  in  public  relations  can  hope 
to  succeed  in  drawing  the  masses  to  him  unless  he  can  go  out  to 
meet  them  in  sympathy.  To  sympathize  with  them  means  that 
he  must  understand  their  point  of  view.  The  great  man,  who 
like  Lincoln,  can  perform  some  act  which  all  the  masses  can 
understand  and  appreciate  is  the  one  who  can  gain  their  sym- 
pathies. They  understand  the  simple,  homely,  every-day  acts 
and  therefore  their  sympathies  are  enlisted.  The  more  philo- 
sophic acts  of  statesmanship  are  not  understood,  but  through  the 
commonplace  acts,  faith  is  engendered.  The  great  statesman 
who  has  only  this  philosophic  side,  and  who  can  never  come  to 
the  people's  level  will  never  raise  the  people  to  his  level.  In 
thinking  of  Queen  Victoria  all  else  is  forgotten  about  her  by  the 
multitude,  except  that  she  was  a  tender  mother,  a  devoted  wife, 
and  a  dutiful  daughter.  Because  of  these  characteristics  she  will 
go  down  through  all  the  ages  beloved  by  the  masses. 

The  teacher  who  cannot  meet  pupils  on  their  own  level, 
though  he  may  be  ever  so  scholarly,  wise,  and  philosophically 
just,  will  never  enlist  their  sympathies.  Many  teachers  have 
either  forgotten  childhood  or  else  they  never  had  a  real  child- 
hood, for  the  pupil's  actions  are  no  longer  comprehensible  to 
them.  They  do  not  and  probably  cannot  sympathize  with 
child  life.  Such  teachers  should  either  cultivate  an  intelligent 
acquaintance  with  child-life  so  as  to  understand  and  appreciate 
it,  or  quit  the  business  of  teaching.  It  is  lamentable  that  in  the 
teachers'  preparation  the  main  emphasis  has  been  placed  upon 
the  understanding  of  subject-matter  and  so  little  to  developing 
a  deeper  and  more  sympathetic  understanding  of  child-life. 

It  is  highly  important  that  pupils  be  in  sympathy  with  the 
school  and  its  functions.  This  is  often,  too  often,  not  secured. 


654  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

Pupils  feel  that  the  teacher  is  an  autocrat  dictating  laws  without 
reference  to  the  wishes  or  even  welfare  of  the  children  them- 
selves. Few  openly  rebel  though  many  secretly  long  for  free- 
dom. Such  need  not  be  the  case  if  pupils  are  only  led  to  see 
the  meaning  of  school  rules  and  regulations  and  if  they  have 
developed  a  feeling  of  personal  ownership  in  the  school.  Though 
I  have  no  patience  with  the  artificial  schemes  of  self-government, 
so  called,  in  which  the  teacher  abandons  all  rights,  privileges,  and 
authority,  yet  pupil  co-operation  must  be  secured.  This  can 
only  come  about  through  their  understanding  of  the  aims,  pur- 
poses, and  means  of  government.  They  should  participate  and 
co-operate  to  the  fullest  extent  possible,  but,  what  is  equally  as 
important,  they  should  understand  that  their  immaturity  and 
their  inexperience  place  limitations  upon  their  powers  of  govern- 
ing wisely  and  hence  the  necessity  of  acquiescing  in  those  means 
employed  by  teachers,  and  school  boards.  They  should  be  led 
to  see  that  the  school  is  theirs  and  that  whatever  affects  the  indi- 
vidual affects  the  school,  also  that  whatever  affects  the  school  in 
turn  affects  the  pupils  in  the  school.  As  soon  as  a  correct  under- 
standing is  gained  a  sense  of  participation  results.  As  soon  as  a 
sense  of  participation  is  developed  the  feeling  of  sympathy  begins 
to  grow. 

From  the  stand-point  of  social  needs  it  is  greatly  to  be  desired 
that  children  become  sympathetic  with  the  various  forms  of 
political  and  social  organizations.  This  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  obeying  the  laws  of  the  development  of  sympathy,  viz., 
by  giving  a  thorough  knowledge  of  those  things  with  which  the 
children  ought  to  sympathize.  The  classes  of  people  who  are 
out  of  sympathy  with  institutions  are  the  ones  who  do  not  un- 
derstand them.  Being  in  sympathy  with  our  institutions  does 
not  mean  being  satisfied  with  everything,  but  it  does  mean 
intelligent  appreciation  of  the  conditions  under  which  they  have 
been  developing  and  are  developing,  and  also  patience  with  the 
slow  pace  of  development.  It  should  also  reveal  definitely 
that  social  development  depends  upon  the  active  co-operation 
of  all  the  individuals  composing  society.  The  doctrine  of  help- 


EMOTIONAL   LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         655 

ful  service  needs  much  emphasis  in  our  homes,  schools,  and 
churches. 

Fear  is  an  emotion  that  is  manifested  early  in  life.  Among 
lower  animals  there  are  none  that  do  not  exhibit  some  sort  of 
fear.  Since  each  class  of  animals  seems  to  manifest  particular 
kinds  of  fear,  these  are  probably  instinctive.  The  young  of  all 
animals  are  probably  without  fear  immediately  after  birth,  but 
the  instincts  of  fear  are  simply  deferred  and  very  soon  begin 
to  function.  That  fears  are  instinctive,  however,  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  animals  give  evidence  of  fear  without  any  experience 
and  without  any  possibility  of  imitation.  For  example,  young 
kittens  show  fear  of  dogs.  Sometimes  a  different  early  environ- 
ment will  develop  new  tendencies  so  that  those  which  would  have 
developed  may  never  become  manifest.  Mr.  Spalding  cites 
illustrations  of  this  in  chicks.  Those  hatched  in  incubators 
and  which  see  men  early  are  never  afraid  of  them.  But  if 
they  do  not  see  them  when  very  young  they  later  exhibit  great 
terror.  He  kept  three  chickens  hooded  until  they  were  about 
four  days  old  and  then  when  unhooded  their  behavior  was  as 
follows : 

"  Each  of  them  on  being  unhooded,  evinced  the  greatest  terror 
of  me,  dashing  off  in  the  opposite  direction  whenever  I  sought  to 
approach  it.  The  table  on  which  they  were  unhooded  stood 
before  a  window,  and  each  in  its  turn  beat  against  the  window 
like  a  wild  bird.  One  of  them  darted  behind  some  books,  and, 
squeezing  itself  into  a  corner,  remained  cowering  for  a  length  of 
time.  We  might  guess  at  the  meaning  of  this  strange  and  ex- 
ceptional wildness;  but  the  odd  fact  is  enough  for  my  present 
purpose.  Whatever  might  have  been  the  meaning  of  this  marked 
change  in  their  mental  constitution — had  they  been  unhooded  on 
the  previous  day  they  would  have  run  to  me  instead  of  from 
me — it  could  not  have  been  the  effect  of  experience;  it  must 
have  resulted  wholly  from  changes  in  their  own  organization."  1 
Spalding  tells  us  that  young  chicks  become  terrified  at  the  first 
appearance  of  a  hawk,  but  that  the  appearance  of  a  dove  creates 

1  Macmillan's  Magazine,  February,  1873,  p.  289. 


656  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

no  fear.  Ribot  states,1  on  the  authority  of  Gratiolet,  that  a  little 
dog  which  had  never  seen  a  wolf  was  seized  with  indescribable 
terror  on  smelling  a  piece  of  wolf-skin.  Tracy2  classes  as 
hereditary  those  fears  manifested  by  the  child  at  a  few  weeks 
of  age  when  it  starts  and  cries  at  any  sudden  sound  or  strange 
sight.  Many  children  cry  on  seeing  dogs  or  other  animals,  or 
when  it  thunders.  They  frequently  shrink  back  in  terror  when 
they  see  a  person  in  black  or  when  they  hear  a  strange  voice. 
"A  little  girl,  slightly  over  two  months  old,  appeared  terrified 
on  beholding  a  distorted  face;  she  cried  out,  and  sought  pro- 
tection in  her  mother's  arms.  It  was  long  before  she  was  re- 
stored to  her  accustomed  tranquillity — the  vision  reappeared  in 
memory,  haunted  her  fancy,  and  brought  tears  to  her  eyes." 

In  his  pioneer  work  on  fear,  Hall  gives  a  wonderful  array  of 
evidence  concerning  the  instinctive  basis  of  fear.  He  says: 
"In  the  past  the  pain  field  has  been  incalculably  larger  than  the 
pleasure  field,  and  so  potent  is  this  past  that  its  influence  domi- 
nates the  most  guarded  child,  in  whom  otherwise  the  pleasure 
field  should  be  relatively  the  largest  anywhere  to  be  found. 
Now,  darkness  and  the  unknown  alike  have  few  terrors;  once 
they  had  little  else.  The  old  night  of  ignorance,  mother  of 
fears,  still  rules  our  nerves  and  pulses  in  the  dark  despite  our 
better  knowledge.  Lacking  this  latter,  children  fall  still  more 
abjectly  under  her  spell.  Hence  it  is  that  animals  found  only 
in  distant  lands  or  long  extinct,  robbers,  impossible  monsters, 
ghosts,  etc.,  rarely  present,  and  never  feared  in  waking  con- 
sciousness, bear  witness  again  to  the  remoteness  of  the  past  to 
which  some  of  the  roots  of  this  class  of  fears  penetrate." 
Further,  "The  more  I  study  the  feeling  of  children  for  animals, 
the  less  I  can  agree  with  Sully,  Compayre  and  others  that  the 
hypothesis  of  ancestral  transmission  is  not  needed  here.  More 
than  many  others,  these  fears  [of  animals]  seem  like  lapsed 
reflexes,  fragments  and  relics  of  psychic  states  and  acts  which 
are  now  rarely  seen  in  all  their  former  vigor,  and  which  the  indi- 

1  Psychology  of  the  Emotions,  p.  210. 

2  Psychology  of  Childhood,  p.  44. 


EMOTIONAL   LIFE  AND   EDUCATION         057 

vidual  life  of  the  child  nor  even  present  conditions  can  wholly 
explain."  l 

Although  fear  is  often  shown  in  the  presence  of  some  abso- 
lutely new  experience,  we  are  hardly  justified  in  concluding  that 
there  is  a  definite  instinctive  fear  of  the  particular  object  which 
has  excited  the  emotion.  As  previously  shown,  many  instincts, 
especially  of  mankind,  are  very  vague  and  susceptible  of  develop- 
ment in  many  directions.  Hence,  it  is  more  to  be  supposed  that 
a  great  variety  of  objects  may  produce  fear.  These  experiences 
which  come  suddenly,  without  warning,  which  arc  violent,  and 
which  cannot  be  understood,  are  the  ones  likely  to  produce  fear. 
That  a  cat  is  suddenly  thrown  into  a  paroxysm  of  fear  on  the 
first  appearance  of  a  dog,  while  a  child  might  not  be,  can  possibly 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  cat  experiences  a  strange  and 
sudden  sensation  of  smell.  Because  of  the  dulness  of  the  sense 
of  smell  in  the  child  it  receives  no  sudden  and  alarming  sensation. 
The  cat  is  afraid  not  because  it  is  a  dog,  but  because  it  has  been 
violently  disturbed.  It  would  undoubtedly  have  been  alarmed 
at  the  appearance  of  a  kangaroo,  though  it  has  no  racial  memory 
of  kangaroos.  I  believe,  however,  that  there  are  hereditary  pre- 
dispositions to  feel  fear. 

Since  there  are  such  strange  hereditary  tendencies  to  experi- 
ence fear  it  is  important  that  all  causes  which  would  produce 
violent  shocks  should  be  guarded  against.  This  is  especially 
important  in  the  years  of  infancy.  It  is  during  these  plastic 
years  that  the  formative  tendencies  of  life  are  produced.  The 
infant  in  the  cradle  should  be  safeguarded  from  sudden  and  loud 
noises,  strange  sights,  and  disagreeable  tactile  experiences.  A 
child  with  frequently  shocked  sensibilities  comes  early  to  dread 
every  new  and  strange  experience,  while  the  one  without  re- 
membrances of  former  disagreeable  shocks  grows  to  expect  only 
pleasant  experiences.  The  former  may  have  latent  fears  stimu- 
lated and  new  ones  implanted,  while  the  latter  will  be  fortified 
against  undesirable  potentialities  and  protected  against  the 
germs  of  new  ones. 

1  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  8  :  189,  2oq. 


658  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

When  the  child  becomes  older  and  fears  are  implanted  through 
higher  mental  processes  the  same  careful  treatment  should  be 
continued.  The  child  then  begins  to  fear  through  imagining 
harmful  consequences  that  would  come  from  certain  objects  or 
from  certain  actions  which  he  is  led  to  believe  would  be  harm- 
ful. The  telling  of  sensational  stories  is  one  of  the  most  frequent 
causes  of  fear  in  children.  Injudicious  servants,  playmates,  and 
even  parents  and  teachers  frequently  tell  children  of  goblins, 
ghosts,  and  bogies,  sometimes  just  to  interest  children,  but  even 
more  often  to  scare  them.  The  children  are  not  seldom  fright- 
ened into  obedience  by  threats  of  being  taken  by  the  bogey  man 
or  the  bears.  Soon  all  dark  and  unexplored  places  are  through 
imagination  peopled  with  frightful  creatures.  The  child  comes 
to  dread  a  new  situation  and  becomes  timid  and  hesitant  in 
undertaking  new  things.  If  the  child  is  neurotic  in  addition  to 
this  psychical  condition,  he  is  easily  made  a  coward.  Bashful 
children  injudiciously  treated  are  frequently  made  to  suffer  un- 
told agonies  through  imagining  ridicule  or  censure. 

A  bashfully  inclined  child,  by  being  repressed  and  made  to 
fear  being  observed,  and  through  imagination  of  unfavorable 
comment,  can  be  made  a  life-long  social  coward.  When  we  are 
thinking  of  making  Young  America  "mind"  or  "to  be  seen  and 
not  heard,"  we  should  take  a  second  thought  as  to  whether  we 
may  not  be  repressing  the  very  boldness  which  will  make  for 
social  and  moral  courage  in  manhood  and  womanhood.  Better 
smile  at  a  little  over-confidence  or  put  up  with  egotism  which 
smacks  of  impudence  than  repress  every  manly  and  womanly 
instinct  of  courage.  There  are  doubtless  thousands  of  weak- 
willed,  shame-faced,  limp-spined  men  in  the  world  who  owe 
their  condition  to  fears  engendered  by  overstrict  and  injudicious 
parents.  In  order  to  have  made  them  valiant  and  courageous 
there  would  have  been  necessary  only  a  little  protection  from 
foolish  fears  and  a  stimulating  encouragement  to  have  confidence 
in  their  own  powers.  To  be  continually  told  that  one  will  fail 
in  an  undertaking  is  with  the  naturally  timid  almost  fatal  to 
success.  It  is  often  unfortunate  to  have  children  in  the  school 


EMOTIONAL   LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         659 

obtrusive  in  their  boldness,  but  it  is  probably  more  unfortunate 
to  have  the  child  utterly  distrustful  of  his  own  powers.  Life  is 
so  full  of  real  disappointments  that  no  one  needs  to  be  harassed 
with  fears  of  any  unnecessarily  imagined  ones.  Self-confidence 
is  one  of  the  greatest  factors  in  success. 

The  results  of  the  use  or  the  abuse  of  fear  may  be  suggested 
in  the  following: 

Timidity  "I  f  Caution 

Cowardice  j  Prudence 

T>      ur    i  f     < <   FEAR   > >     <    „          .    , 

Bashfulness  1  Foresight 

c  ,,  (Negative)  (Positive)  -,          ° 

Self-consciousness  J  [  Fear  of  wrong 

It  will  thus  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  to  educate  the  child  so 
that  he  shall  learn  to  fear  wisely  and  effectively  is  a  very  impor- 
tant part  of  education.  The  lowest  form  of  fear  is  instinctive 
and  directed  toward  self-preservation.  Of  the  highest  we  may 
voice  the  proverb  that  "  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom."  Harden  says:  "Doubt,  uncertainty,  fear  of  failure, 
are  the  greatest  enemies  of  mankind.  No  man  ever  yet  accom- 
plished a  great  deed  with  a  doubt  clouding  his  mind.  The  mira- 
cles of  civilization  have  been  performed  by  men  and  women  who 
believed  in  themselves.  In  spite  of  ridicule,  incredulity,  and 
abuse  they  maintained  unwavering  faith  in  their  power  to  ac- 
complish the  tasks  to  which  they  had  set  themselves." 

The  following  good  suggestions  are  in  entire  harmony  with 
the  teachings  of  the  Lange- James  theory  of  the  emotions: 
"'Assume  a  virtue  if  you  have  it  not,'  is  sound  advice.  There 
is  a  great  deal  in  assuming  the  part  or  character  you  desire  to 
play  in  life's  drama.  If  you  wish  to  take  the  part  of  a  successful 
man  you  must  assume  the  mental  attitude,  the  outward  manner 
of  one.  It  is  not  difficult  to  pick  out  a  successful  man  in  the 
street.  If  he  is  a  leader,  a  man  who  relies  upon  himself,  every 
step,  every  movement  indicates  it.  There  is  assurance  in  his 
very  bearing.  He  walks  as  if  he  were  master  of  himself,  as 
though  he  believed  in  his  ability  to  do  things,  to  bring  about 
results.  People  are  impressed  in  spite  of  themselves  by  a  con- 


66o  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

fident  bearing.  They  trust  a  man  who  believes  in  himself; 
they  take  his  ability  for  granted,  but  they  have  only  pity  or  con- 
tempt for  the  self-depreciating  doubter.  The  man  without  self- 
confidence  and  iron  will  is  the  plaything  of  chance,  the  puppet 
of  his  environment,  the  slave  of  circumstances.  With  these  he 
is  king,  ever  master  of  the  situation."  1 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  has  beautifully  expressed  the  idea  in 
the  following: 

"'Twixt  what  thou  art  and  what  thou  would'st  be,  let 
No  'if  arise  on  which  to  lay  the  blame. 
Man  makes  a  mountain  of  that  puny  word, 
But  like  a  blade  of  grass  before  the  scythe, 
It  falls  and  withers  when  a  human  will 
Stirred  by  creative  force,  sweeps  toward  its  aim." 

Anger  is  an  emotion  which  is  displayed  early  in  the  child's 
life.  Darwin  believes  that  real  anger  is  displayed  as  early  as  the 
fourth  month.  Perez  cites  a  case  of  apparent  anger  caused  by 
jealousy  which  occurred  at  three  and  one-half  months.  It  is 
difficult,  however,  to  distinguish  clearly  in  very  young  children 
between  expressions  of  anger,  fright,  or  pain.  The  cries,  facial 
expressions,  and  bodily  contortions  are  very  similar  in  all.  The 
emotion  doubtless  has  an  instinctive  basis.  It  is  made  manifest 
in  reaction  to  a  sense  of  pain  or  injury.  The  physical  expressions 
accompanying  the  emotions  are  too  well  known  to  need  more 
than  mention  here.  There  are  characteristic  expressions  even 
among  animals.  Spencer  says:  "The  destructive  passion  is 
shown  in  a  general  tension  of  the  muscular  system,  in  gnashing. 
of  teeth  and  protrusion  of  the  claws,  in  dilated  eyes  and  nostrils, 
in  growls;  and  these  are  weaker  forms  of  the  actions  that  accom- 
pany the  killing  of  prey.  .  .  .  What  we  call  the  natural  language 
of  anger  is  due  to  a  partial  contraction  of  those  muscles  which 
actual  combat  would  call  into  play;  and  all  marks  of  irritation, 
down  to  that  passing  shade  over  the  brow  which  accompanies 
slight  annoyance,  are  incipient  stages  of  the  same  contractions." 
It  is  claimed  that  the  various  human  emotional  expressions  like 

'Chicago  Record-Herald.  2  Psychology,  §  213. 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION         66 1 

clenching  the  teeth,  curling  the  lip,  etc.,  are  genetically  traceable 
to  more  primitive  ancestry.  Clenching  the  teeth  and  probably 
curling  the  lip  are  connected  with  the  act  of  biting.  Other  char- 
acteristic expressions  are  supposed  to  be  connected  with  actions 
of  attack  or  defence. 

It  is  unnecessary  in  this  book  to  discuss  the  manner  in  which 
outbursts  of  angry  temper  should  be  curbed  in  children.  Unless 
the  passions  are  restrained  it  is  very  easy  for  the  child  to  fall 
into  the  habit  of  flying  into  a  rage  every  time  his  wishes  are 
thwarted.  Such  a  habit  will  be  a  source  of  great  weakness  in 
later  life  and  will  operate  against  success  at  many  a  turn.  The 
individual  who  goes  into  a  blustering  rage  is  a  weak  opponent 
for  the  man  who  keeps  his  head.  In  argument  or  in  physical 
contests  the  angry  man  dissipates  his  energy  and  becomes  an 
impotent  antagonist.  The  poet  says  of  him: 

"He  swells  with  wrath;  he  makes  outrageous  moan: 
He  frets,  he  fumes,  he  stares,  he  stamps  the  ground." 

The  child  should  early  be  led  to  see  that  uncontrolled  temper 
will  lead  him  continually  into  trouble  and  into  doing  things  which 
may  prove  sources  of  life-long  regret.  As  Edmund  Spenser  wrote: 

"Full  many  mischiefs  follow  cruel  wrath, 

Abhorred  bloodshed,  and  tumultuous  strife, 
Unmanly  murder,  and  unthrifty  scathe, 
Bitter  despite,  with  rancor's  rusty  knife, 
And  fretting  grief — the  enemy  of  life." 

Though  we  must  condemn  unrestrained  angry  passions,  yet 
there  are  occasions  when  with  Lear  we  should  say: 

"Fool  me  not  so  much 
To  bear  it  tamely;   touch  me  with  noble  anger." 

The  child  should  early  be  led  to  look  with  indignation  upon  that 
which  is  base,  unjust,  and  unworthy.  He  should  be  trained  to 
look  with  disgust  and  abhorrence  upon  conduct  that  is  disgraceful 
not  only  where  personal  injury  has  come  to  him  but  whenever 
justice  and  right  have  been  outraged.  Children  must  be  aroused 


662  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

out  of  indifference  to  wrongs  witnessed  against  others,  into  ac- 
tive championship  of  the  oppressed  and  the  down-trodden.  The 
habit  cannot  be  formed  too  early.  There  is  something  wrong 
with  the  education  of  children  of  ten  years  of  age  if  they  delight 
in  the  persecution  of  animals,  in  seeing  weak  children  bullied 
and  abused  by  the  stronger.  Often  children  tease  others  in  a 
thoughtless  way,  but  no  well-trained  child  delights  in  witnessing 
or  causing  real  injury  to  another.  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  man- 
hood the  emancipator  of  the  lowly  slave,  in  boyhood  was  laughed 
at  as  the  friend  and  champion  of  the  poor  inoffensive  turtles 
which  were  stoned  by  the  rude  school-boys.  He  was  as  ready  to 
fight  for  the  rights  of  the  turtle  as  for  the  oppressed  black  man. 
Though  teasing  and  bullying  are  instinctive  in  childhood  and 
youth,  I  am  not  ready  to  admit  that  they  cannot  be  and  should 
not  be  well  under  control  in  the  ordinary  child  before  he  is  ten 
years  of  age. 

It  is  only  through  the  development  of  the  feeling  of  indignation 
against  injustice  that  one  becomes  the  real  friend  of  society.  To 
not  injure  others  is  well,  but  not  enough;  it  is  only  negative. 
One  must  be  positive  as  well  as  negative.  Proper  development 
of  this  feeling  leads  one  to  defend  his  friends  and  neighbors,  his 
state  and  his  country  as  well  as  himself.  It  leads  one  country 
to  defend  another  unjustly  attacked.  It  led  the  United  States 
to  defend  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  against  an  outrageous  foe. 
It  led  the  Union  to  dismemberment  when  each  section  believed 
itself  to  be  the  champion  of  certain  inalienable  rights  apparently 
violated.  These  feelings  must  actuate  the  philanthropist,  the 
minister,  and  the  true  statesman.  The  feeling  is  apt  to  be  ill- 
nourished,  because  personal  loss  often  follows  attempts  to  cham- 
pion the  rights  of  society.  Were  the  feeling  properly  developed 
in  all,  our  cities  would  be  well  governed,  our  streets  clean  and 
well-lighted,  public  sanitation  perfect,  our  children  properly 
schooled,  our  laws  better  obeyed,  justice  better  administered, 
our  taxes  cut  in  half,  our  public  parks  increased,  public  nuisances 
abated,  the  poverty-stricken  provided  with  work,  municipal 
corruption  eliminated,  etc.  But  so  long  as  the  public  conscience 


EMOTIONAL  LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         663 

is  apathetic  and  we  do  not  feel  indignant  at  public  wrongs  unless 
we  are  affected  individually,  just  so  long  will  public  wrong  con- 
tinue. We  are  too  apt  to  close  our  eyes  to  everything  that  does 
not  strike  home.  The  criminal  knows  this.  Only  the  individ- 
uals wronged  are  anxious  to  testify  against  the  criminal  and  they 
are  easily  eluded.  But  when  every  individual  in  a  community 
is  ready  to  champion  the  rights  of  every  other  individual  in  the 
community  then  the  criminal  finds  it  dangerous  to  operate  there. 
We  need  a  multitude  of  men  such  as  one  of  our  great  cities 
recently  furnished  us  in  the  person  of  a  young  lawyer,  who 
tracked  to  their  hiding  places  and  brought  to  the  bar  of  justice 
a  whole  ring  of  corrupt  city  officials.  So  unselfish  was  he  that 
he  rejected  the  offer  of  the  grateful  city  of  a  house  and  lot  as  a 
recognition  of  his  meritorious  altruism.  His  services  had  been 
only  in  the  cause  of  right  and  as  an  indignant  rebuke  against 
the  evils  which  the  city  suffered.  It  was  only  such  service  as 
every  ideal  citizen  ought  to  be  willing  to  render. 

The  child  should  also  be  taught  to  stand  up  for  his  personal 
rights.  To  be  sure,  he  must  learn  not  to  assume  those  which 
do  not  belong  to  him.  But  he  must  learn  to  know  his  rights  and 
to  maintain  them.  This  means  that  he  must  not  allow  others 
to  impose  upon  him  or  to  bully  him.  We  applaud  the  nation 
which  fights  the  foe  that  insults  her  colors  and  why  not  the 
individuals  that  maintain  their  personal  dignity?  The  boy  or 
girl  who  is  habitually  teased  and  bullied  is  usually  one  with 
cowardly  traits.  The  one  who  is  cowardly  in  defence  of  himself 
will  seldom  exhibit  courage  in  protecting  the  rights  of  others. 
Every  one  should  have  self-respect  and  should  maintain  it. 
Righteous  indignation  is  not  only  permissible  but  commenda- 
ble whenever  injustice  has  been  witnessed,  whether  the  offense 
is  against  one's  self  or  against  society. 

General  Principles  in  the  Education  of  the  Emotions. — The 
main  principle  underlying  the  education  of  the  emotions  is  that 
we  are  to  seek  their  control,  rather  than  their  repression  or  their 
undue  growth.  There  are  no  emotions  that  are  per  se  wholly 
undesirable,  but  they  may  need  much  stimulation  in  order  that 


664  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

they  may  develop  in  desirable  directions.  All  need  the  refining 
effect  of  breadth  of  knowledge  to  make  them  pure  and  exalted. 
In  fact  the  higher  emotions  are  the  product  of  knowledge  which 
has  come  through  apperception  to  possess  a  given  feeling-tone. 
For  example,  love  of  country  or  of  home;  what  are  they  but 
certain  states  of  feeling  developed  through  knowledge?  The 
one  whose  knowledge  of  home  and  country  is  limited  to  those  of 
the  tribe  has  not  much  real  affection  for  either.  Only  the  civil- 
ized person  with  a  wealth  of  meaning  gained  through  knowl- 
edge of  these  institutions  can  have  much  real  love  for  them. 

The  highest  phases  of  love  are  unknown  to  children  and 
savages.  The  dog  is  fond  of  his  master,  but  knows  no  love. 
The  child  is  fond  of  those  who  protect  and  care  for  it,  but  his 
love  is  not  deep  nor  abiding.  His  affections  are  easily  gained. 
A  bit  of  candy,  a  bright  colored  toy  and  he  is  your  worshipper, 
i.  e.,  until  you  are  out  of  sight  and  then  his  affections  are  as  easily 
transferred.  How  many  times  a  day  are  the  child's  affections 
transferred  from  one  playmate  to  another!  One  minute  he  is 
friend  and  admirer,  the  next,  enemy  and  contemner.  Even 
among  children  in  the  grammar  grades  the  rings  and  cliques  are 
as  unstable  as  ice  on  a  summer's  day.  One  day  two  girls  are 
chums,  thick  as  possible,  and  the  next  they  will  not  speak  to  each 
other.  It  has  been  observed  that  it  is  impossible  to  secure  team 
work  in  base-ball  and  foot-ball  among  boys  under  twelve  or 
fourteen.  The  child's  grief  is  soon  over.  Even  after  the  loss  of 
a  parent,  the  grief  is  seldom  deep  or  lasting.  Others  can  im- 
mediately gain  the  place  of  the  lost  one.  This  all  means  that 
genuine  love  in  its  highest  phases  is  impossible  without  highly 
trained  intellect.  The  adult  who  knows  the  worth  of  the  loved 
one,  who  understands  the  far-reaching  consequences  to  one's 
own  life,  is  the  one  who  feels  grief  at  separation. 

Shakespeare  says  of  youthful  love: 

"What  is  love?  'Tis  not  hereafter; 
Present  mirth  has  present  laughter; 
What's  to  come  is  still  unsure. 

,  Youth's  a  stuff  will  not  endure." 


EMOTIONAL   LIFE   AND   EDUCATION         665 

Hence  in  attempting  to  cultivate  the  higher  emotional  nature 
we  must  bear  in  mind  the  functional  relation  of  affective  processes 
to  intelligence.  The  development  of  the  higher  emotions  is 
absolutely  dependent  upon  intellectual  expansion.  They  are  a 
result  of  rationalization. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
INTEREST  AND  EDUCATION 

Nature  of  Interest. — Interest  is  an  attitude  of  the  mind  which 
impels  it  toward  the  object  of  its  contemplation.  The  im- 
pulse is  experienced,  because  of  a  feeling  of  the  worth  of  the 
object  or  action  contemplated.  Interest  is  usually  a  pleasurable 
state  of  mind,  but  it  may  sometimes  be  a  painful  state.  In 
either  case  it  is  fascinating  and  compelling.  One  who  is  thor- 
oughly interested  in  anything  has  his  whole  mind  actively  con- 
cerned with  it.  Whenever  freed  from  other  things  the  mind 
normally  reverts  to  the  object  of  its  deepest  interest.  Dewey 
says:  "The  root  idea  of  the  term  seems  to  be  that  of  being 
engaged,  engrossed,  or  entirely  taken  up  with  some  activity 
because  of  its  recognized  worth.  The  etymology  of  the  term 
inter esse,  to  be  between,  points  in  the  same  direction."  1  Inter- 
est may  be  of  varying  degrees  and  kinds,  from  pleasure  in  cutting 
colored  papers,  or  curiosity  concerning  geological  specimens,  to 
intense  love  for  another  person  or  love  for  a  divine  being.  As 
before  noted,  the  interest  may  be  a  painful  attitude.  The  type 
discussed  in  this  chapter,  however,  will  be  pleasurable  states. 

In  addition  to  being  an  emotional  state,  interest  is  very  closely 
related  to  the  intellect  on  the  one  side  and  to  volition  on  the 
other.  From  the  definition  it  will  be  seen  that  all  interest  has  an 
"active  or  propulsive  phase."  There  is  always  an  accompani- 
ment of  self-expression,  an  active  attempt  by  the  individual  at 
the  identification  of  the  self  and  the  object  of  its  interest.  This 
can,  however,  only  be  the  outcome  of  knowledge.  To  be  con- 
crete, if  I  am  interested  in  a  thing  I  attempt  to  make  it  my  pos- 

1  Interest  in  Relation  to  Training  of  the  Will,  p.  13,  Second  Supplement  to 
the  First  Yearbook  of  the  National  Herbart  Society. 

666 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  667 

session,  or  I  try  to  make  the  thing,  or  I  attempt  to  accomplish 
the  line  of  action,  doing,  making,  understanding,  possessing,  etc. 
Interest  makes  the  mind  kinetic,  while  knowledge  gaining  with- 
out interest  is  a  static  condition.  Things  which  interest  us  are 
voluntarily  and  purposely  attended  to  and  without  external  com- 
pulsion. A  majority  of  the  stimulations  of  the  senses  never 
receive  attention  largely  because  they  have  no  interest  for  us. 
James  says:  " Millions  of  items  of  the  outward  order  are  present 
to  my  senses  which  never  properly  enter  into  my  experience. 
Why?  Because  they  have  no  interest  for  me.  My  experience 
is  what  I  agree  to  attend  to.  Only  those  items  which  I  notice 
shape  my  mind — without  selective  interest,  experience  is  an 
utter  chaos.  Interest  alone  gives  accent  and  emphasis,  light 
and  shade,  background  and  foreground — intelligible  perspective, 
in  a  word.  It  varies  in  every  creature,  but  without  it  the  con- 
sciousness of  every  creature  would  be  a  gray,  chaotic  indis- 
criminateness,  impossible  for  us  even  to  conceive."  l 

The  question  of  interest  is  one  that  has  received  much  discus- 
sion of  late.  It  is  a  very  important  question,  and  its  interpreta- 
tion affects  vitally  one's  whole  method  of  teaching,  and  it  is  even 
determinative  of  subject-matter  from  the  kindergarten  through 
the  university.  Even  yet  it  is  very  erroneously  interpreted  by 
many.  Its  answer  as  exemplified  in  the  daily  training  of  children 
is  coloring  our  whole  national  existence.  Such  points  as  the 
following  are  involved:  Shall  the  child  follow  his  own  pleasure 
in  determining  what  his  activities  shall  be?  Or,  should  the 
educator  set  up  certain  ideals,  the  attainment  of  which  necessarily 
involves  the  pursuit  of  activities,  many  of  which  may  be  even 
distasteful  to  the  child?  Should  we  seek  to  keep  the  child 
happy  or  should  he  be  brought  to  feel  the  seriousness  of  life? 
Should  pleasure-giving  means  be  employed  in  instruction  so 
that  the  child  forgets  that  he  is  working?  Should  learning 
become  as  nearly  as  possible  play  ?  Or,  should  the  play  element 
be  wholly  eliminated  from  tasks?  Again  we  have  the  more 
ultimate  and  equally  complex  problem  whether  interest  is  to  be 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  pp.  402-403. 


668  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

a  means  of  education  or  an  end.  That  is,  shall  the  child  be 
interested  in  order  that  he  may  understand  things,  which  are 
possibly  disagreeable,  but  deemed  necessary  for  his  welfare,  or 
should  he  learn  things  in  order  that  he  may  develop  or  have 
created  certain  desirable  interests  in  life  ?  If  interest  is  to  be  a 
means,  then  shall  we  try  to  secure  interest  in  the  thing  itself— 
immediate  interest,  or  should  we  secure  a  mediator  through  which 
interest  may  in  turn  be  secured  and  through  which  we  may 
smuggle  in  the  otherwise  uninteresting? 

Interest  as  a  Means. — The  average  teacher  seems  to  regard  all 
interest  as  mediate  ;  a  sort  of  sugar  coating  which  will  render 
bitter  pills  less  objectionable.  So  many  pages  of  arithmetic  are 
to  be  mastered  and  devices  must  be  sought  which  will  help 
accomplish  the  end.  Under  the  guise  of  one  thing,  if  needs  be, 
the  child  must  get  another  thing.  New  words  are  to  be  called 
fishes  in  a  pond;  leaves  called  fairies;  geography  lessons  called 
journeys,  etc.  The  young  teacher  is  apt  to  think,  and  many 
teachers  of  pedagogy  lead  them  to  believe,  that  interest  is  largely 
a  matter  of  manner  0}  presentation  of  a  subject.  It  is  supposed 
that  by  proper  skill,  sufficient  smiles,  a  lively  manner,  and  plenty 
of  amusing  stories  any  subject  can  be  made  interesting  to  any 
pupils.  The  whole  interest  is  supposed  to  inhere  in  the  teacher. 
To  keep  the  pupils  good-natured,  to  keep  them  in  school,  to 
avoid  conflict,  to  cause  them  to  like  her,  seem  to  be  the  dominat- 
ing influences  in  many  teachers'  work.  They  seem  to  regard  all 
effort  as  opposed  to  interest.  Such  teachers  seldom  care  what 
kind  of  interest  is  felt  in  the  subject  after  the  task  has  been  ac- 
complished. Will  the  pupil  choose  this  subject  later  on  ?  Does 
he  apply  it  to  his  daily  life  with  pleasure,  or  does  he  drop  it  out 
of  his  existence  when  it  ceases  to  be  his  lesson?  These  results 
do  not  seem  to  be  of  concern. 

Interest  to  such  teachers  means  pleasure,  amusement,  having 
a  good  time.  They  usually  feel  that  struggle,  work,  overcoming 
of  obstacles  are  antagonistic  to  interest.  In  planning  to  keep 
pupils  interested  they  usually  try  to  amuse  them,  to  relieve  from 
difficulties,  to  smooth  the  path.  "It  is  often  claimed  that  if 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  669 

there  is  dulness  and  disgust  with  a  study  it  is  the  fault  of  the 
teacher.  As  Mr.  Quick  says:  'I  would  go  so  far  as  to  lay  it 
down  as  a  rule,  that  whenever  children  are  inattentive  and  ap- 
parently take  no  interest  in  a  lesson,  the  teacher  should  always 
look  first  to  himself  for  the  reason.  There  are  perhaps  no  cir- 
cumstances in  which  a  lack  of  interest  does  not  originate  in  the 
mode  of  instruction  adopted  by  the  teacher.'  This  statement 
assumes  that  all  knowledge  is  about  equally  interesting  to  pu- 
pils, and  everything  depends  upon  the  manner  in  which  the 
teacher  deals  with  it."  1 

Interest  as  an  End. — But  while  it  is  desirable  to  produce  inter- 
est in  order  to  secure  study,  interest  as  an  end  is  desirable.  One 
of  the  great  aims  of  education  should  be  to  stimulate  abiding 
interests  in  the  studies  themselves,  and  also  to  make  the  studies 
lead  to  permanent  and  desirable  life  interests.  Spencer  tells  us2 
that,  "As  a  final  test  by  which  to  judge  any  plan  of  culture, 
should  come  the  question, — Does  it  create  a  pleasurable  excite- 
ment in  the  pupils?"  Again  he  says  that  if  a  given  course  of 
study  "produce  no  interest,  or  less  interest  than  another  course, 
we  should  relinquish  it."  McMurry  says:  "  The  common  under- 
standing has  been  that  instruction  is  aiming  at  knowledge,  and 
that  interest  is  one  of  the  means  by  which  that  aim  can  be  best 
attained;  in  brief,  knowledge  is  the  end  and  interest  is  the 
means.  But  the  new  stand-point  asserts  interest  to  be  the  highest 
aim  of  instruction,  and  ideas  to  be  the  means  by  which  that  ob- 
ject can  be  reached;  that  is,  interest  is  the  end  and  knowledge  is 
the  means.  Thus  the  tables  have  been  turned.  There  is  now 
a  strong  inclination  on  the  part  of  many  to  measure  the  success 
of  years  of  teaching  not  by  the  quantity  of  information  one 
possesses  on  Commencement  Day,  but  by  the  degree  of  interest 
engendered  in  the  lines  of  study  followed.  The  attitude  of  the 
mind  toward  study  is,  to  them,  the  most  important  point."  3 
Herbart  regarded  interest  as  the  chief  outcome  of  the  pursuit  of 
the  course  of  study.  Not  only  should  interests  in  the  particular 

1  McMurry,  Elements  of  General  Ifethod,  5th  ed.,  p.  73. 

s  Education,  p.  127.  ''  Educational  Review,  n,  p.  147. 


670  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

subjects  become  deep  and  abiding,  but  they  should  have  fertil- 
ized a  variety  of  larger  and  more  universal  interests.  This  is 
what  he  means  by  many-sidedness  of  interest. 

Effort  versus  Interest. — There  are  those  who  feel  that  interest 
should  be  neither  an  end  nor  a  means.  To  make  things  interest- 
ing, they  say,  is  to  defeat  the  disciplinary  effects  which  should 
characterize  all  education.  In  real  life  there  is  abundance 
of  drudgery  and  if  one  has  not  been  schooled  in  doing  uninter- 
esting tasks  later  life  will  witness  continuous  shirking  of  one's 
duties  and  responsibilities.  Even  James  who  exalts  interest  in 
many  instances,  advises  formal  training  through  drudgery.  He 
says:  "Keep  the  faculty  of  effort  alive  in  you  by  a  little  gratuitous 
exercise  every  day.  That  is,  be  systematically  ascetic  or  heroic 
in  little  unnecessary  points,  do  every  day  or  two  something  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  you  would  rather  not  do  it,  so  that 
when  the  hour  of  dire  needs  draws  nigh,  it  may  find  you  not  un- 
nerved and  untrained  to  stand  the  test.  Asceticism  of  this  sort 
is  like  the  insurance  one  pays  on  his  house  and  goods.  The  tax 
does  him  no  good  at  the  time,  and  possibly  may  never  bring  him 
a  return.  But  if  the  fire  does  come,  his  having  paid  it  will  be  his 
salvation  from  ruin.  So  with  the  man  who  has  daily  inured  him- 
self to  habits  of  concentrated  attention,  energetic  volition,  and 
self-denial  in  unnecessary  things.  He  will  stand  like  a  tower 
when  everything  rocks  around  him,  and  when  his  softer  fellow- 
mortals  are  winnowed  like  chaff  in  the  blast."  *  Now,  while 
James  is  right  in  arguing  for  those  most  desirable  habits  as  a 
result,  it  will  be  shown  in  the  subsequent  discussion  that  the 
motives  which  prompt  their  formation  may  be  quite  different 
from  what  he  suggests. 

Interest  in  Effort. — Those  persons  are  wrong  who  deal  with 
the  case  as  a  question  of  interest  versus  effort.  It  is  rather  a 
question  of  the  kind  of  interest.  We  should  strive  to  maintain 
interest,  and  the  greater  the  interest,  the  greater  the  enthusiasm 
in  one's  work,  the  better  it  will  be  accomplished.  But  there  is 
no  dodging  the  stern  reality  that  life  is  full  of  drudgery  and  detail 

1  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  149 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  671 

work,  and  often  interest  will  not  attach  to  the  thing  itself  or  very 
strongly  to  the  details  of  much  laborious  activity.  The  scientist, 
for  example,  has  to  deal  with  long,  tedious  columns  of  figures 
which  must  be  added,  averages  and  averages  of  averages  found ; 
maximum  amounts  and  minimal  differences,  average  errors, 
average  deviations,  and  the  like  must  be  computed;  all  of  them 
processes  requiring  drudgery  which  few  can  stand  without  feel- 
ing great  fatigue.  Now  were  the  scientist's  interest  not  above 
and  beyond  in  something  more  ultimate  he  would  never  get 
through  the  task. 

We  do  not  wish  to  have  the  child  do  things  unwillingly. 
Things  should  not  be  done  because  they  are  disagreeable,  but 
neither  should  necessary  things  be  omitted  because  disagreeable. 
The  two  are  not  mutually  exclusive.  Every  one  has  felt  more 
self-respect  many  times  when  he  has  persisted  in  pursuing  to  the 
finish  some  task  involving  disagreeable  drudgery.  I  believe  the 
farmer  boy  experiences  such  a  feeling  when  he  finishes  well  the 
field  of  corn  among  the  stumps;  binds  the  bundles  in  the  hot 
harvest  sun,  ploughs  the  stony  field,  or  repairs  properly  the  bat- 
tered fence.  So,  too,  the  child  in  school  feels  satisfaction  and 
pride  when  he  has  a  good  geography  lesson,  a  perfect  spelling 
list,  or  a  model  page  of  writing,  even  though  the  mind  would 
have  feasted  on  marble-playing,  chasing  butterflies,  making  rabbit 
traps,  or  going  swimming.  A  university  student  once  said  to 
me:  "  I  would  like  to  take  a  certain  attractive  course,  but  I  have 
started  this  German;  I  have  had  no  end  of  difficulty  with  it,  but 
I  feel  that  to  give  it  up  would  be  like  yielding  to  temptation.  To 
fight  it  out  will  be  to  strengthen  my  moral  nature."  Who,  that 
has  any  stamina,  has  not  worked  for  hours  to  get  the  right  answer 
to  a  problem  or  a  puzzle,  even  though  the  answer  were  of  no 
consequence  and  was  obtained  only  to  be  forgotten  in  a  few 
minutes?  Certainly  the  drudgery  was  not  interesting.  The 
interest  lay  in  conquering,  in  mastery  of  inclination  to  ease,  and 
in  the  end  to  be  accomplished.  The  loafer  would  have  yielded  to 
momentary  ease.  The  future  would  have  been  dismissed.  I 
suppose  every  book  that  has  been  written  has  involved  much 


672  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

drudgery,  and  only  a  more  remote  interest  has  borne  the 
to  the  finale.  Even  to  think  the  individual  sentences,  much  less 
to  write  them,  is  not  easy  nor  alluring  to  most  people.  The 
interest  in  the  anticipated  result  is  what  stimulates  them  to 
action.  Every  book,  regardless  of  its  intrinsic  worth,  represents 
moral  persistence,  and  moral  mastery  in  silencing  the  siren 
beckoning  to  momentary  indulgence  and  pleasure.  The  indolent 
mind  abhors  details.  It  deals  in  unverified  generalities.  The 
master  mind,  although  it  may  soar  to  heights  unglimpsed  by  the 
indolent  mind,  yet  has  derived  these  generalities  from  a  mass  of 
detail  which  it  has  carefully  scrutinized  and  weighed  and  sifted. 
The  lazy  mind  deals  with  general  statements  or  expressions, 
received  at  second  hand  and  not  with  generalized  products  of 
his  own  thought. 

There  is  interest  in  meeting  with  difficulties  to  cope  with. 
Paulsen  says  if  we  could  have  a  life  devoid  of  struggle,  a  trial  of 
it  "would  soon  cause  us  to  regret  our  choice,  and  make  us  long 
for  our  old  life  with  all  its  troubles  and  sorrows  and  pains  and 
fears.  A  life  absolutely  free  from  pain  and  fear  would,  so  long 
as  we  are  what  we  are,  soon  become  insipid  and  intolerable. 
For  if  the  causes  of  pain  were  eliminated,  life  would  be  devoid 
of  all  danger,  conflict,  and  failure — exertion  and  struggle,  the  love 
of  adventure,  the  longing  for  battle,  the  triumph  of  victory- 
all  would  be  gone.  Life  would  be  pure  satisfaction  without 
obstacles,  success  without  resistance.  We  should  grow  as  tired 
of  all  this  as  we  do  of  a  game  which  we  know  we  are  going  to 
win.  What  chess  player  would  be  willing  to  play  with  an 
opponent  whom  he  knows  he  will  beat?  What  hunter  would 
enjoy  a  chase  in  which  he  had  a  chance  to  shoot  at  every  step 
he  took,  and  every  shot  was  bound  to  hit  ?  Uncertainty,  diffi- 
culty, and  failure  are  as  necessary  in  a  game,  if  it  is  to  interest 
and  satisfy  us,  as  good  luck  and  victory."  1 

Interest  the  Prime  Consideration  in  Education. — All  learning 
which  is  not  the  outcome  and  accompaniment  of  pleasurable 
interest  fails  to  call  forth  genuine  self-activity  and  does  not  give 

1  Paulsen,  A  System  of  Ethics,  p.  260. 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  673 

training.  Moreover,  the  influence  is  not  only  negative  but 
positively  dangerous.  It  produces  divided  attention  and,  as 
Dewey  remarks,  "the  theory  of  effort,  as  already  stated,  means 
a  virtual  division  of  attention  and  the  corresponding  disintegra- 
tion of  character,  intellectually  and  morally.  ...  A  child  may 
be  externally  entirely  occupied  with  mastering  the  multiplication 
table,  and  be  able  to  reproduce  that  table  when  asked  to  do  so 
by  his  teacher.  The  teacher  may  congratulate  himself  that  the 
child  has  been  so  exercising  his  will  power  as  to  be  forming  right 
intellectual  and  moral  habits.  Not  so,  unless  moral  habit  be 
identified  with  this  ability  to  show  certain  results  when  required. 
The  question  of  moral  training  has  not  been  touched  until  we 
know  what  the  child  has  been  internally  occupied  with,  what  the 
predominating  direction  of  his  attention,  his  feelings,  his  disposi- 
tion has  been  while  engaged  upon  this  task.  If  the  task  has 
appealed  to  him  merely  as  a  task,  it  is  as  certain  psychologically 
as  the  law  of  action  and  reaction  is  physically,  that  the  child  is 
simply  engaged  in  acquiring  the  habit  of  divided  attention;  that 
he  is  getting  the  ability  to  direct  eye  and  ear,  lips  and  mouth,  to 
what  is  present  before  him  in  such  a  way  as  to  impress  those 
things  upon  his  memory,  while  at  the  same  time  getting  his 
mental  imagery  free  to  work  upon  matters  of  real  interest  to 
him."  1 

The  greater  the  amount  of  interest  the  better.  No  one  ever 
accomplished  much  in  any  direction  until  he  gave  himself  to 
his  task  body  and  soul.  The  scriptural  injunctions:  "Whatso- 
ever thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might;"  and  "Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind  and  with  all  thy  strength,  etc.," 
contain  the  key  to  the  secret  of  success.  It  is  not  advocated  here 
that  work  should  be  made  disagreeable.  Even  though  a  given 
occupation  may  seem  dreary,  exhausting,  irksome,  the  whole  of 
which  this  unit  is  a  part  should  be  of  absorbing  interest.  The 
end  to  be  attained  should  be  so  alluring  that  no  amount  of  dis- 
agreeableness  could  drive  us  away.  As  I  write  these  pages  the 

1  Dewey,  loc.  cit.,  p.  9. 


674  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

mercury  is  mounting  daily  to  110°  in  the  shade.  My  room 
seems  stuffy  and  almost  unbearable,  perspiration  makes  my  gar- 
ments sticky,  my  sweaty  hands  soil  the  paper,  and  the  hot  wind 
occasionally  seizes  my  paper  and  takes  it  pirouetting  across  the 
room.  All  these  are  annoyances,  sufficient  to  drive  me  from 
writing  pedagogics  to  seek  Lake  Superior  breezes.  No  one  has 
set  me  the  task  of  writing.  I  am  free  to  go  to  Lake  Superior. 
Then  why  do  I  persist  ?  I  answer,  interest  in  the  result.  I  may 
see  the  necessity  of  formulating  properly  certain  conclusions  for 
my  classes  next  year,  or  I  may  be  eager  to  measure  my  strength, 
to  see  what  I  can  do.  I  may  be  pleasantly  dreaming  of  the  con- 
verts to  my  doctrines,  or  of  the  money  that  will  seek  my 
coffers.  Any  of  these  possible  ideas  may  have  become  fixed  in 
my  consciousness.  It  is  the  imagined  end,  possibly  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp  but  nevertheless  pleasing  and  soul-absorbing,  that  is 
impelling  me  on.  While  the  phantom  is  bright  I  forget  the 
petty  annoyances  of  heat,  moist  hands,  noisy  children,  rumbling 
wagons,  and  clouds  of  heated  dust.  I  am  living  in  the  alluring 
result — I  am  genuinely  interested.  As  Adams  has  said : 1  "  The 
theory  of  interest  does  not  propose  to  banish  drudgery,  but  only 
to  make  drudgery  tolerable  by  giving  it  a  meaning.  We  have 
seen  that  what  is  interesting  is  by  no  means  necessarily  pleasant; 
but  it  is  something  that  impels  us  to  exertion.  If  pleasure  be 
the  sole  object  the  teacher  has  in  view  in  cultivating  interest,  he 
will  fail  miserably." 

Holman  writes:2  "All  the  energy  of  the  self  is  given  up  to 
the  endeavor  to  obtain  the  desired  end.  There  is  a  conviction, 
more  or  less  explicit,  that  unless  the  end  is  secured  the  self  will 
suffer  either  negatively  (through  loss  of  pleasure)  or  positively 
(through  incurring  pain).  So  that  if  the  end  is  gained,  there  is  a 
feeling  of  self-realization,  that  is,  with  regard  to  the  experience, 
the  self  is  what  it  ought  to  be.  This  is  best  illustrated,  in  its 
extreme  form,  in  the  case  of  faddists,  enthusiasts,  religious 
devotees,  etc."  Hence  the  value  of  a  strong  headway  of  interest. 

1  Herbartian  Psychology  Applied  to  Education,  p.  262. 
2  Education,  p.  124 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  675 

It  is  interest  that  leads  the  child  to  chase  butterflies  and  to  go 
fishing.  It  is  also  interest  which  impels  the  scientist  to  his  un- 
ceasing toil,  the  author  to  his  pen,  the  politician  to  his  party 
issues,  the  philanthropist  to  his  labor  of  love. 

Instincts  and  Interests.— Interests  are  primarily  a  function  of 
instincts.  Secondarily  they  are  determined  by  environment  and 
education.  Of  course,  interest  in  a  particular  object  is  not  de- 
termined by  instinct;  but  the  type  of  interest  is  determined  in 
broad  outlines  by  instinct  and  heredity.  The  hound  is  interested 
in  the  chase,  the  lion  in  stalking  its  prey,  and  the  cat  in  stealthily 
creeping  upon  its  victim.  The  boy  is  naturally  interested  in 
warlike,  savage  plays,  the  girl  in  dandling  her  dolls,  the  mother 
in  sacrifice  for  her  infant  child.  The  child's  dominant  interests 
are  selfish.  With  the  approach  of  manhood  sex-interests,  home- 
making  and  the  religious  interests,  make  their  appearance.  As 
instincts  have  their  periods  of  nascency,  full  bloom,  and  decay, 
likewise  interests  growing  out  of  the  corresponding  instincts 
have  their  periods  of  birth,  growth,  and  decay.  The  presence  of 
deep,  abiding,  general  interests  indicates  the  possession  of  corre- 
sponding instincts.  Conversely,  the  absence  of  a  given  type  of 
interest  signifies  the  absence  of  concomitant  instincts.  No  one 
ever  possesses  a  genuine  interest  in  any  line  of  action  without 
possessing  native  power  in  that  direction.  Persons  devoid  of 
musical  ability  never  voluntarily  manifest  a  persistent  interest  in 
producing  music.  They  may  enjoy  hearing  others  perform,  but 
their  interest  will  be  too  feeble  to  impel  them  to  actual  participa- 
tion. Those  without  athletic  ability  (potentiality,  instinct)  never 
are  deeply  enough  interested  to  participate  to  any  extent.  Those 
who  sit  on  the  bleachers  and  yell  themselves  hoarse  are  not 
necessarily  interested  in  athletics.  They  are  more  likely  to  be 
interested  in  the  sport  because  of  a  sort  of  gambler's  interest,  or 
because  of  interest  in  the  institution  represented.  Genuine 
interest  in  anything  impels  one  to  active  participation  in  it. 

The  foregoing  facts  have  an  important  bearing  upon  teaching. 
The  boy  who  is  not  interested  in  his  mathematics  and,  though 
diligent,  cannot  become  interested,  probably  has  no  instinct — • 


676  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

no  ability  for  it.  The  one  who  is  slow  to  develop  an  interest  in 
languages,  in  music,  or  in  drawing,  presumably  is  deficient  in 
power,  ability — instinct — in  those  particular  directions.  Lack  of 
interest  and  corresponding  ability  at  any  particular  period  do 
not  necessarily  mean  permanent  lack  in  the  given  direction. 
Oftentimes  a  power  is  dormant,  the  nascent  period  has  not 
appeared.  Unfortunately  sometimes,  alas  too  frequently,  it  may 
mean  that  a  nascent  period  passed  without  proper  stimulation. 
Frequently  when  the  child  is  uninterested  in  his  arithmetic  he 
has  not  arrived  at  the  period  when  arithmetical  thinking  is 
sufficiently  developed.  Successful  accomplishment  is  necessary 
to  the  continuance  of  interest.  The  child,  as  well  as  the  adult, 
who  continually  fails  through  inability  soon  displays  distaste  for 
that  particular  activity.  At  a  later  time  when  association  fibres 
have  matured,  relational  thinking  can  be  engaged  in,  and  abstract 
mathematical  thinking  may  be  a  delight.  The  fundamental 
cause  of  shifting  interests  is  the  fact  of  changing  powers — instincts 
— through  processes  of  development.  To  be  sure,  lack  of  inter- 
est may  not  be  due  to  lack  of  ability,  but  no  other  cause  is  so 
largely  responsible.  Consequently  any  lack  of  interest  should 
excite  suspicion  and  cause  investigation  to  determine  whether 
there  is  a  deficiency  of  native  power  in  the  given  direction  or  a 
defect  in  the  means  or  manner  of  approach  to  the  activity. 

Children's  Egoism. — The  child's  early  instincts  are  selfish. 
He  cares  little  for  aught  except  his  own  egoistic  pleasures.  They 
are  not  mere  animal  pleasures,  as  of  eating  and  drinking  to 
satiety,  basking  in  warmth,  and  so  on.  Most  of  his  egoistic 
pleasures  are  psychical  and  of  a  high  order.  His  delight  and  sat- 
isfaction in  mental  accomplishments  are  attested  in  an  infinitude 
of  ways,  from  the  repetition  of  striking  a  table  with  a  spoon  to 
hear  the  sound  up  to  the  acquisition  of  intricate  language  co- 
ordinations, making  collections,  and  amassing  funds  of  informa- 
tion just  for  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  and  discovering. 

The  child's  egoistic  nature  makes  him  easily  interested  in  com- 
petition with  his  fellows.  This  is  perfectly  healthy  and  in  no 
wise  dangerous  unless  carried  to  extremes.  By  degrees  the  child 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  677 

may  become  interested  in  doing  things  from  more  altruistic 
motives.  He  comes  to  desire  to  please  his  teacher  or  his  parents. 
The  desire  to  please  his  teacher  and  to  stand  well  in  the  eyes  of 
his  fellows  plays  a  very  important  role  in  keeping  the  child  indus- 
trious at  proper  activities.  The  child  whose  parents  are  inter- 
ested in  his  accomplishments  has  a  much  greater  incentive  to 
work  than  the  one  whose  parents  are  indifferent  to  his  childish 
activities.  Sympathetic  interest  by  the  parent  in  hearing  of  the 
child's  progress  in  reading,  in  praising  his  writing,  his  drawing, 
etc.,  exercise  very  important  influences.  Honest  praise  is  very 
desirable  in  helping  to  maintain  interest.  Nobody,  least  of  all 
a  child,  wishes  to  do  tasks  unnoticed.  They  are  naturally  inter- 
ested in  winning  favor,  place,  or  other  rewards.  Then  there  is  a 
negative  factor  which  stimulates  and  may  even  heighten  interest 
— namely,  the  fear  of  loss  of  position,  loss  of  caste,  degradation, 
or  even  punishment.  The  place  of  healthy  fear  has  been  dis- 
cussed under  the  feelings. 

Growth  of  Altruism. — Lastly  come  the  altruistic  interests  in 
which  others  rather  than  the  self  form  the  centre  of  considera- 
tion. Although  germs  of  these  interests  appear  early,  it  is  only 
with  approaching  adult  life  that  egoistic  interests  are  subordi- 
nated to  altruistic  ones.  In  many,  shall  we  say  the  majority, 
they  never  become  very  strong.  The  evolution  of  the  teacher  or 
minister  illustrate  very  well  the  characteristic  development  of 
interests  from  the  lower  to  the  higher.  Work  and  study  are  at 
first  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  self-improvement,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  gaining  a  certificate  or  license.  This  certificate  is 
desired  because  it  will  bring  personal  reward  in  the  way  of 
position  and  pecuniary  remuneration.  Later  the  work  is  pur- 
sued for  the  sake  of  the  pupils  or  the  pastoral  flock,  and  later 
still  for  the  sake  of  humanity  in  general.  Finally  the  deepest 
religious  interests  come  to  full  force.  This  is  the  highest  altru- 
istic interest.  True  religious  interest  concerns  itself  with  the 
highest  welfare  of  others  as  well  as  of  self.  Now,  through  all 
this  evolution  there  have  been  developed  deep  and  abiding 
interests  in  each  accessory  stage,  but  each  one  in  turn  has  been 


678  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

subordinated  to  the  next  higher  one  that  appeared.  And  it  is 
ever  the  ideal,  largely  unrealized,  which  forms  the  motivating 
interest.  Each  lower  interest  is  created  for  the  purpose  of 
leading  to  a  higher  ideal.  We  should  not  expect  the  young  child 
to  be  especially  altruistic.  If  he  is  there  is  something  abnormal 
about  him.  Of  course,  his  egoism  often  makes  it  uncomfortable 
for  his  seniors,  but  he  is  simply  passing  through  a  stage  which 
he  will  soon  outgrow.  In  race  history  it  has  been  necessary  for 
the  young  to  be  selfish  as  a  means  of  self-protection.  It  was  also 
necessary  for  the  race  as  a  whole  during  its  infancy  to  be  selfish 
for  similar  reasons.  The  child  is  simply  repeating  this  racial 
epoch.  With  the  oncoming  of  adolescence  the  budding  of 
altruism  ought  to  become  thoroughly  apparent.  This  is  the 
time  for  ministration  to  such  impulses  if  ever  they  are  to  be 
developed. 

The  Child's  Interest  in  the  Concrete  and  Objective. — The  child 
is  at  first  interested  in  what  stimulates  his  senses.  He  is  at- 
tracted by  what  he  sees,  hears,  touches;  not  for  what  the  stimuli 
signify,  but  out  of  pure  sense-gratification.  Watch  the  babe 
follow  a  light,  turn  toward  sounds,  express  gratification  at  tactile 
contact  with  things.  External  objects  and  parts  of  his  own  body 
are  handled,  just  for  the  pleasure  of  touching.  For  a  good  many 
years  the  child  is  attracted  by  sensory  stimulation.  WThat  is 
bright  colored,  full  of  motion  or  sound  will  attract.  As  his  at- 
tention becomes  directed  toward  and  centred  upon  things  by 
these  means,  he  gradually  learns  about  things,  and  then  apper- 
ceptively  he  becomes  interested  in  new  things  which  bear  a 
relationship  to  what  he  has  already  understood.  At  this  early 
stage  it  is  legitimate  and  necessary  to  make  things  attractive  to 
the  senses.  Bright-colored  pictures,  various  colored  letters, 
pleasing  tones,  rhythmical  jingles,  exercises  full  of  motion  and 
muscular  activity,  as  motion  songs,  doing  things,  and  making 
things,  must  be  brought  into  requisition.  The  child-mind  deals 
with  the  concrete  and  any  education  that  attempts  to  foist  ab- 
stractions instead  produces  but  a  veneering  which  is  sure  to 
scale  off.  As  much  work  as  possible  in  the  school-room  should 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  679 

be  occupied  in  doing — "learning  by  doing."  It  not  only  fosters 
interest  but  actually  renders  knowledge  more  clear  and  definite. 
This  has  been  illustrated  for  several  subjects  in  the  chapter  on 
training  the  senses  and  training  the  imagination.  In  arith- 
metic there  are  multitudes  of  places  where  the  objective  and 
constructive  work  can  be  brought  into  requisition.  In  denom- 
inate numbers  every  measure  should  be  handled.  The  pupil 
can  measure  the  school-room,  the  wood-pile,  the  coal-bin,  the 
water-pail,  etc.  All  the  various  problems  should  be  experi- 
enced, at  least  until  understood,  before  attempting  a  solution. 
For  example,  here  is  a  post  whose  height  is  known  and  the  length 
of  a  building  or  height  of  a  tree  is  desired.  Have  the  shadows 
measured  or  the  triangles  actually  constructed  until  all  the  con- 
ditions are  fully  grasped.  A  half-hour  spent  out  in  the  yard  mak- 
ing measurements  and  getting  all  the  conditions,  instead  of  hours 
of  aimless  frittering  with  the  symbolism  of  arithmetic  inoppor- 
tunely introduced,  will  make  the  task  pleasant  and  profitable. 
It  will  mean  something  and  the  pupil  will  be  vitally  interested. 
Detach  studies  from  life  and  much  interest  is  sapped  from 
childhood. 

It  is  easy  to  enlist  the  interest  of  children  in  nature  about  them. 
Here,  as  in  all  cases,  apperception  is  the  basis.  The  farmer 
boy  often  goes  through  life  seeing  little  of  the  wonderful  things 
about  him,  simply  because  he  has  never  been  taught  to  see. 
Teach  him  that  geological  forces  and  botanical  processes  have  a 
relation  to  all  life  about  him  and  a  new  world  is  opened  up. 
Give  country  children  a  few  of  the  obvious  facts  concerning 
plant  life,  growth,  circulation  of  sap,  fertilization  of  flowers, 
relation  of  bacterial  life  to  plant  growth,  something  concerning 
food  ingredients  in  soil,  rain,  and  air,  the  action  of  light  on  plant 
growth,  some  of  the  easy  principles  of  horticulture,  fertilization, 
etc. ;  gently,  tactfully  dispel  some  of  the  many  superstitions  and 
saws  relating  to  life  and  growth  and  they  become  new  creatures 
— their  eyes  will  be  opened,  they  will  be  born  again.  A  few 
facts  like  the  above  can  easily  lead  them  to  the  perusal  of  books 
like  Darwin's  study  of  vegetable  mould  and  of  earthworms,  and 


68o  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

into  a  perusal  of  his  Origin  of  Species — into  science.  The  first 
geological  interest  I  ever  acquired  came  through  being  told 
(through  chance  reading!)  about  the  action  of  frost  upon  ground 
ploughed  in  the  fall.  My  interest  was  immediate.  I  wanted  to 
know  what  would  give  better  crops.  The  interest  kindled  and 
widened  and  has  not  died  out.  The  introduction  of  the  study 
of  elementary  agriculture  into  the  country  schools  would  give  a 
new  worth  to  country  school  instruction. 

Interest  in  Means  and  Ends. — Dewey  says  in  this  connection,1 
after  identifying  interest  and  self-expression:  "There  are  cases 
where  self-expression  is  direct  and  immediate.  It  puts  itself 
forth  with  no  thought  of  anything  beyond.  The  present  activity 
is  the  only  ultimate  in  consciousness.  It  satisfies  in  and  of  itself. 
The  end  is  the  present  activity,  and  there  is  no  gap  in  space  nor 
time  between  means  and  end.  All  play  is  of  this  immediate 
character.  All  purely  aesthetic  appreciation  approximates  this 
type.  The  existing  experience  holds  us  for  its  own  sake,  and 
we  do  not  demand  of  it  that  it  take  us  into  something  beyond 
itself.  With  the  child  and  his  ball,  the  amateur  and  the  hearing 
of  a  symphony,  the  immediate  engrosses.  Its  value  is  there,  and 
is  there  in  what  is  directly  present.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand, 
we  have  cases  of  indirect,  transferred,  or,  technically,  mediated 
interest.  That  is,  things  indifferent  or  even  repulsive  in  them- 
selves often  become  of  interest  because  of  their  assuming  rela- 
tionships and  connections  of  which  we  are  previously  unaware. 
Many  a  student,  of  so-called  practical  make-up,  has  found 
mathematical  theory,  once  repellent,  lit  up  by  great  attractive- 
ness when  he  studied  some  form  of  engineering  in  which  this 
theory  was  a  necessary  tool.  The  musical  score  and  the  tech- 
nique of  fingering,  in  which  the  child  can  find  no  interest  when 
it  is  presented  as  an  end  in  itself,  when  it  is  isolated,  becomes 
fascinating  when  the  child  realizes  its  place  and  bearing  in 
helping  him  give  better  and  fuller  utterance  to  his  love  of  song. 
It  is  all  a  question  of  relationship,  whether  it  appeals  or  fails  to 
appeal;  and  while  the  little  child  takes  only  a  near  view  of 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  15. 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  681 

things,  as  he  grows  he  becomes  capable  of  extending  his  range, 
and  seeing  an  act,  or  a  thing,  or  a  fact,  not  by  itself,  but  in  its 
value  as  part  of  a  larger  whole.  If  this  whole  belongs  to  him, 
if  it  is  a  mode  of  his  own  movement,  then  the  particular  gains 
interest  too." 

"  What  use  can  be  made  of  this  ?"  is  one  of  the  common  ques- 
tions asked  by  children.  It  is  not  an  idle  question  with  them 
either.  It  represents  a  deep-seated  interest.  I  have  noticed 
children  very  apathetic  over  lessons  on  coal,  iron,  and  other 
minerals,  as  long  as  the  emphasis  was  put  upon  classification 
and  other,  to  them,  abstract  considerations.  But  as  soon  as  the 
idea  of  its  utility  in  the  economy  of  civilization  was  introduced 
they  were  all  aglow  with  enthusiasm.  They  care  little  for 
classification  and  scientific  principles.  They  have  not  reached 
the  age  for  that,  but,  What  is  it  for  ?  How  is  it  used  ?  How 
does  it  affect  them?  are  all  vital  considerations.  In  this  very 
instinct  lies  a  very  strong  leverage  for  securing  efficient  work 
from  children.  Children  often  imagine  ideal  states  which  they 
wish  to  attain,  but  if  they  do  not  form  these  images  for  themselves 
they  should  be  led  to  build  them,  for  the  pursuit  of  ideals  con- 
stitutes the  essence  of  progress.  With  these  ideals  alluring  them, 
they  can  usually  be  shown  the  necessity  of  their  studies  in  at- 
taining the  ideals.  A  boy  who  hates  arithmetic  but  lives  in 
contemplation  of  machinery  can  easily  be  led  to  see  that  mathe- 
matics is  the  key  to  its  understanding  and  construction.  Due 
consideration  of  the  relationship  between  mechanics  and  arith- 
metic will  undoubtedly  produce  interest  in  the  arithmetic,  but 
the  road  will  be  indirect.  After  early  childhood  our  interests  are 
very  largely  incited  in  this  fashion.  The  boy  learns  his  lessons 
because  by  so  doing  he  can  gain  favor,  rank,  prestige;  because 
they  will  enable  him  to  accomplish  something  else.  His  read- 
ing, he  comes  to  believe,  will  reveal  entertaining  stories,  his 
writing  will  enable  him  to  write  to  grandma,  etc. 

Children's  own  stories  and  spontaneous  drawings  are  full  of 
ideas  of  action,  and  especially  actions  related  to  use.  Binet 
records1  the  results  of  some  tests  made  upon  his  two  little  girls, 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  December,  1890. 


682  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

two  and  a  half  and  four  and  a  half  years  old.  He  asked  them 
what  they  meant  by  a  number  of  words  they  used,  such  as  horse 
and  clock,  and  wrote  down  their  answers.  Their  answers  indi- 
cated that  they  were  most  interested  in  the  use,  and  next  in  order 
came  the  movements.  They  seldom  described  things  by  color, 
form,  or  size,  but  told  what  it  could  do  or  for  what  it  was  used; 
Barnes  tried  essentially  the  same  experiment  with  more  than  a 
thousand  children  and  found  that  their  definitions  were  in  the 
following  order:  By  far  the  larger  number  from  six  to  twelve 
years,  explained  in  terms  of  use.  Next  in  order  came  definitions 
by  placing  under  a  more  generic  term,  as:  "A  dog  is  an  animal." 
Third  in  order  was  action;  fourth,  quality;  fifth,  place;  sixth, 
color;  seventh,  form;  eighth,  structure;  ninth,  substance.  With 
increasing  age  the  tendency  to  explain  in  other  terms  than  use 
increased.  At  all  ages  up  to  fifteen  use  was  very  strong  in  all 
their  explanations.  Barnes  says:  "In  looking  at  the  chart  of 
seven-year-old  children  one  is  struck  with  the  preponderance  of 
the  definitions  of  use.  Children  at  this  age  consider  that  they 
have  told  you  all  about  an  object  when  they  tell  you  what  it  is 
good  for.  'A  horse  is  to  ride,'  'A  mamma  is  to  take  care  of 
children,  and  a  box  is  to  put  things  in.'  To  the  young  child  all 
things  exist  to  meet  some  of  his  own  particular  wants;  thus,  'A 
village  is  to  buy  candy  in;'  'A  bird  is  to  make  meat  with,  or  is 
good  to  lay  little  eggs;'  'A  dog  is  good  to  catch  flies;'  'A  mamma 
is  good  to  cook,  or  to  whip  little  children.'"  1 

An  illustration  borrowed  from  Adams  is  to  the  point:2  "John 
was  a  perfectly  normal  type — clever  and  very  careless.  Sud- 
denly the  mathematical  master  reported  an  amazing  improve- 
ment in  John's  marks.  On  investigation  the  improvement  was 
found  to  limit  itself  to  mensuration.  Still  further  inquiry  nar- 
rowed down  the  prodigy  to  segments  of  circles;  but  as  those 
could  not  be  understood  without  previous  work,  John  asked  and 
obtained  permission  to  work  from  the  beginning.  In  three 
weeks  he  had  bored  his  way  honestly  through  half  of  Todhunter's 
Mensuration,  and  was  very  eager  to  be  promoted  to  the  volumes 

1  Studies  in  Education,  I,  p.  207.     See  also  p.  227. 

2  Herbartian  Psychology  Applied  to  Education,  p.  264. 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  683 

of  spheres.  John  was  now  the  talk  of  the  master's  room,  where 
nobody  had  a  good  word  to  say  for  him  except  the  science  mas- 
ter, who  reported  that  John  had  developed  a  violent  interest  in 
chemistry,  and  was  showing  leanings  toward  volumetric  analy- 
sis. The  whole  trouble  was  afterward  traced  to  its  primary 
bacillus  in  a  gigantic  balloon  that  John  was  projecting.  How 
to  cut  the  gores  drove  him  to  Todhunter;  how  to  calculate  how 
much  zinc  and  sulphuric  acid  were  necessary  to  float  his  balloon 
with  hydrogen  had  urged  him  to  chemistry.  Balloon-making 
did  not  make  either  mensuration  or  chemistry  easy;  it  made  them 
interesting." 

A  business  man  desires  to  accomplish  certain  business  ends; 
it  may  be  the  selling  of  sewing  machines  in  Europe,  but  a  lack 
of  knowledge  of  the  languages  stands  in  the  way.  He  sets  him- 
self assiduously  to  mastering  those  languages.  At  first  the  inter- 
est is  not  primarily  in  the  German,  the  French,  or  the  Scandi- 
navian; it  is  avowedly  in  selling  sewing  machines,  but  once  they 
are  learned  undoubtedly  an  interest  is  built  up  in  the  languages 
for  their  own  sakes.  This  probably  differs  little  from  the  course 
of  development  of  the  philologist.  He,  of  course,  ultimately 
develops  a  much  deeper  and  more  lasting  interest  in  the  study 
for  its  own  sake;  but  ordinarily  he  has  started  out  interested  in 
making  a  living,  securing  certain  rank,  or  with  the  intention  of 
becoming  a  teacher.  Much  in  the  same  way  one  goes  to  college. 
A  college  education  is  a  necessary  qualification  for  our  ideal 
society,  business,  entertainment;  it  will  furnish  us  a  passport 
through  many  desired  portals.  We  shall  have  to  admit  that 
these  are  utilitarian  motives,  but  probably  no  study  is  voluntarily 
taken  without  some  such  motive.  It  could  not  be  otherwise. 
Lack  of  apperceptive  ideas  prohibits  us  from  being  interested  in 
a  subject  of  which  we  know  nothing.  This  is  not  to  say  that  a 
genuine  interest  may  not  be  awakened  in  the  study  as  soon  as  it 
is  revealed  to  us.  After  all,  are  not  these  higher  motives  than 
taking  subjects  simply  because  one  is  assigned  them  by  a  task- 
master or  because  they  are  in  a  required  curriculum? 

McMurry  says  that  "It  should  be  remembered  that  motive 


684  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

cannot  be  eliminated  from  drudgery,  and  that  the  way  to  prepare 
for  the  latter  is  to  develop,  not  a  formal  power,  but  a  strong 
motive.  Motive  has  its  origin  in  interest.  Hence,  so  far  as 
instruction  is  concerned,  the  chief  preparation  for  drudgery  that 
the  teacher  can  give  is  a  strong  and  many-sided  interest."1 
Dewey  maintains  that  when  genuinely  interested  in  the  results 
to  be  attained  we  are  equally  interested  in  all  the  details  neces- 
sary for  the  realization  of  that  end.  He  says:  "  A  genuine  inter- 
est in  the  ideal  indicates  of  necessity  an  equal  interest  in  all  the 
conditions  of  its  expression."  He  further  says  that  the  finished 
form  is  completely  transferred  over  into  these  special  acts.  It 
would  hardly  seem  as  if  this  were  true.  For  example,  in  writing 
this  chapter,  I  cannot  see  that  the  pasting  together  of  the  scraps 
of  paper  made  by  my  scissors  has  any  fascination  for  me,  and 
much  less  the  wearisome  rewritings;  but  still,  by  the  ideal 
which  motivates  me  I  am  enabled  to  lay  hold  of  this  otherwise 
irksome  work  and  almost  forget  the  toil  and  the  drudgery  in 
the  zeal  for  giving  expression  to  what  I  regard  as  truth  which  I 
fondly  imagine  the  world  to  be  awaiting.  Marking  large  bun- 
dles of  examination  papers  is  a  part  of  a  good  teacher's  work, 
and  every  one  of  the  craft  is  interested  in  being  the  best  of  teach- 
ers, but  toward  the  hundredth  paper  one's  interest  in  that  par- 
ticular activity  cannot  be  said  to  be  very  tense,  though  he  is  sin- 
cerely interested  in  maintaining  a  reputation  as  a  good  teacher. 
However,  whether  one  is  really  interested  in  his  trials  and 
tribulations  because  they  are  units  in  the  accomplishment  of  a 
zealously  pursued  ideal,  or  whether  they  are  momentarily  for- 
gotten, is  a  minor  matter  pedagogically.  The  significant  fact  is 
that  because  of  the  relationship  of  whole  and  part,  and  through 
the  intensity  of  interest  in  the  whole  one  is  enabled  to  buckle  to 
and  without  too  much  pain  accomplish  the  parts.  When  the 
end  is  pleasing  and  alluring  the  means  either  become  inter- 
preted as  pleasurable  because  a  part  of  the  whole,  or  are  dropped 
out  of  consciousness  altogether,  just  as  an  ugly  feature  is  not 
thought  of  in  a  friend  with  a  beautiful  character. 

1  Educational  Review,  u  :  155 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  685 

Dewey  maintains  that  even  with  children  activity  in  any  given 
direction  should  spring  from  a  need  experienced  by  the  individual 
in  realizing  his  higher  self.  The  child,  for  example,  should  learn 
to  read  when  he  feels  the  need  of  it  in  realizing  his  ideal  self; 
and  he  should  learn  the  multiplication  table  when  his  ideal  self 
demands  a  knowledge  of  computation  as  a  means  of  realization. 
This  is  difficult  to  see  in  all  its  aspects,  especially  when  the  child's 
ideals  are  so  vague  and  fleeting.  It  would  seem  as  if  in  this  stage 
prescription  must  determine  much  of  the  activity  which  will  aid 
in  the  perfect  realization  of  the  ideal  which  superiors  believe  is 
in  harmony  with  the  child's  needs  and  possibilities.  But  cer- 
tainly it  is  right  to  secure  these  relations  between  work  and 
ideals  in  increasing  degrees  through  life.  "The  genuine  prin- 
ciple of  interest  is  the  principle  of  the  recognized  identity  of  the 
fact  or  proposed  line  of  action  with  the  self;  that  it  lies  in  the 
direction  of  the  agent's  own  growth,  and  is,  therefore,  imperiously 
demanded  if  the  agent  is  to  be  himself.  .  .  .  Genuine  interest  in 
education  is  the  accompaniment  of  the  identification,  through  ac- 
tion, of  the  self  with  some  object  or  idea,  because  of  the  necessity 
of  that  object  or  idea  for  the  maintenance  of  self-expression."1 

Processes  or  Results  ? — The  adult  does  not  feel  the  exhilara- 
tion that  the  boy  does  in  merely  going  through  processes.  The 
boy,  the  pedagogues  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  does  derive 
a  good  deal  of  satisfaction  in  merely  working  examples,  getting 
answers  which  are  speedily  forgotten.  The  more  mature  one 
becomes,  the  more  remote  the  interest  may  be.  Children  even 
take  a  great  interest  in  learning  words,  words,  words.  Watch 
the  child  dig  a  hole  only  to  fill  it  up  again,  or  cut  up  paper  just 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  cutting.  Their  early  games  have  even 
no  culminating  points — no  one  to  be  caught,  no  one  to  be  tagged, 
no  one  to  be  "it,"  etc.  The  mere  activity,  physical  and  mental, 
is  in  itself  interesting  to  the  child.  I  have  heard  children  as  old 
as  five  years  talk  to  themselves,  incoherently,  making  up  the 
dialogue  as  they  went,  for  an  hour  at  a  time.  The  same  thing 
is  illustrated  in  the  child's  early  babblings.  The  production  of 

1  Dewey,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  9,  12. 


686  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

sound  seems  to  be  the  end  in  view.  It  may  even  be  mere  activity 
of  the  vocal  organs.  In  the  early  stages  of  learning  to  read  I 
have  seen  my  child  of  five  spend  half  an  hour  at  a  time  in  merely 
reading  the  meaningless  letters  and  skeleton  sentences,  such  as, 
"I  .  .  .  how — the  .  .  .  fly."  She  did  not  supply  the  missing 
words.  I  have  even  tried  to  persuade  her  to  take  another  les- 
son. But  she  was  reading  continuously  and  would  leave  no  part 
omitted.  My  boy  of  ten  works  arithmetic  by  the  hour  just  for 
the  pleasure  of  working.  In  all  such  cases  the  process  and  the 
product  are  identical — the  process  is  the  product,  the  means  is 
the  end. 

But  we  must  not  be  deceived.  The  great  mainspring  to 
action  in  all  orders  of  life  is  interest  in  achievement — in  results. 
We  must  not  be  led  to  believe  that  school-children  will  accept 
cheerfully  all  assigned  tasks  because  of  an  inevitable  interest  in 
action — in  processes.  It  is  only  when  we  can  cause  them  to  feel 
a  worth  in  the  result  that  we  can  secure  genuine  and  continuous 
interest.  School  activities  are  frequently  too  far  removed  from 
reality.  Children  like  to  do  and  accomplish  real  work.  A  boy  in 
the  kindergarten  said :  "I  don't  want  to  play  drive  nails;  I  want 
to  drive  some  real  nails  with  a  real  hammer."  Now,  too  much 
occupation  for  children  is  playing  at  driving  nails.  Every  one 
is  more  interested  in  results  than  in  processes  of  securing  results. 
In  life  it  is  results  we  desire.  The  processes  are  only  means  to 
ends.  All  nature  has  been  interested  in  securing  results.  Edu- 
cational theory,  however,  has  erroneously  conceived  educational 
values  to  lie  in  the  processes.  It  is  said  that  the  process  of  learn- 
ing the  arithmetic,  the  algebra,  or  the  Latin,  are  the  important 
things;  the  resulting  knowledge  of  arithmetic,  algebra,  and  Latin 
are  inconsequential,  compared  with  the  value  of  the  processes. 
Learning,  therefore,  is  often  a  purely  formal  affair.  In  the 
chapter  on  formal  discipline  this  theory  is  critically  examined 
and  shown  to  be  untenable.  Even  in  manual  training  attempts 
have  been  made  to  exalt  the  value  of  the  process  and  to  minimize 
the  value  of  products.  A  little  observation  of  pupils  engaged 
in  manual  training  should  show  that  the  child  is  primarily 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  687 

interested  in  the  product.  The  sled,  the  box,  the  Christmas 
present  he  is  constructing  make  the  process  worth  while.  Let 
him  be  asked  to  go  through  purely  formal  "exercises"  without 
making  anything  and  note  the  dwindling  interest. 

Can  we  not  regenerate  all  our  subjects  of  instruction  by 
putting  real,  worthful  results  into  the  foreground?  Why  not 
have  pupils  write  real  letters,  work  concrete  real  problems  grow- 
ing out  of  spontaneous  activities,  study  living  problems  in  civics 
connected  with  every-day  life,  make  geography,  like  charity, 
begin  and  end  at  home,  read  to  know,  recite  to  give  information, 
and  in  all  teaching  have  the  work  spring  out  of  the  demands  of 
life  and  be  made  to  contribute  to  them.  Of  course,  much  must 
be  studied  which  is  only  remotely  connected  with  desired  results. 
In  such  work  it  is  the  duty  of  the  teacher  to  reveal  the  living 
relations  between  the  subject  and  the  pupil's  life,  and  to  show 
that  it  will  contribute  to  wished-for  results.  The  boy  who  re- 
gards algebra  and  Latin  as  mysteries  evolved  merely  for  school- 
boy occupation  is  never  interested;  but  the  boy  who  glimpses 
that  algebra  will  unlock  hidden  secrets  in  electricity  or  that  Latin 
may  contribute  to  his  efficiency  as  a  lawyer  is  aglow  with  enthu- 
siasm over  the  results  and  is  willing  to  master  the  processes. 

McMurry  writes  that  "In  the  business  world  and  in  profes- 
sional life  men  and  women  work  with  abundant  energy  and  will 
because  they  have  desirable  ends  in  view.  The  hireling  knows 
no  such  generous  stimulus.  Business  life  is  full  of  irksome  and 
difficult  tasks,  but  the  aim  in  view  carries  people  through  them. 
We  shall  not  eliminate  the  disagreeable  and  irksome  from  school 
tasks,  but  try  to  create  in  children  such  a  spirit  and  ambition  as 
will  lead  to  greater  exertions.  To  implant  vigorous  aims  and 
incentives  in  children  is  the  great  privilege  of  the  teacher.  We 
shall  some  day  learn  that  when  a  boy  cracks  a  nut  he  docs  so  be- 
cause there  may  be  a  kernel  in  it,  not  because  the  shell  is  hard."  ' 

Imitation,  Suggestion,  and  Interest. — Imitation  and  suggestion 
are  very  potent  means  of  securing  interest  among  children. 
They  instinctively  exhibit  first  curiosity  and  then  genuine  delight 

1  Elements  of  General  Method,  p.  67. 


688  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

in  what  interests  their  mates.  They  are  also  responsive  to  bursts 
of  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  those  whom  they  respect  and  ad- 
mire. Parents  and  teachers  who  cannot  warm  up  over  the 
activities  that  appeal  to  child-life  are  lacking  in  very  essential 
qualities  of  child-leadership.  One  of  the  highest  compliments 
that  can  be  paid  a  teacher  is  that  he  seems  like  a  student  in  his 
eagerness.  Leadership  is  more  to  be  desired  than  policeman- 
ship  or  taskmastership.  "Teaching  is  really  a  matter  of  con- 
tagion rather  than  instruction.  His  (the  child's)  leader  must 
therefore  be  a  person  of  character  and  self-control.  He  loves 
his  leader  and  wants  to  do  for  him.  His  leader  must  be  a  person 
of  ideals  who  can  offer  him  good  and  true  things  to  do."  l  It  is 
necessary  to  distinguish  carefully  between  genuine  interests  and 
spurious  ones  engendered  through  imitation.  Often  pupils 
think  they  are  interested  in  a  subject  simply  because  their  ac- 
quaintances have  the  same  attitude  toward  the  subject.  True 
interest  can  only  develop  through  knowledge.  Consequently  it 
is  only  after  the  pupil  has  given  a  subject  a  fair  trial  that  we 
may  know  whether  or  not  he  is  interested. 

Apperception  and  Interest. — It  often  happens  that  pupils  are 
not  interested  in  a  subject  when  it  is  first  begun,  but  after  they 
have  pursued  it  for  a  time  it  becomes  pleasurable  to  them.  This 
is  to  be  expected.  We  are  really  interested  only  in  those  things 
about  which  we  know  something.  Moreover,  the  more  we  know, 
the  deeper  usually  becomes  our  interest.  Interest  is  cumulative. 
While  knowledge  increases  in  an  arithmetical  ratio,  we  may  say 
that  interest  increases  geometrically.  This  may  not  be  wholly  true 
of  children's  interest  because  with  them  so  much  depends  upon 
novelty  and  change.  But  it  is  true  of  adults.  As  soon  as  one's 
knowledge  really  becomes  a  part  of  one's  mental  system ;  when 
all  activities  of  life  are  fitted  into  this  system;  when  one  begins 
to  shape  all  thoughts,  feelings,  and  actions  by  this  knowledge; 
then  one  may  be  said  to  be  really  interested.  The  business  man 
who  sees  stocks  in  everything,  the  doctor  who  constantly  dis- 
covers cases  to  enlarge  and  support  his  medical  theories;  the 

1  Forbush,  Pedagogical  Seminary,  7  :  341. 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  689 

sociologist  who  discerns  a  sign  of  a  great  social  movement  in 
every  individual's  act,  is  really  interested.  I  say  to  my  students : 
"  You  will  not  be  good  teachers  until  your  days  and  nights,  your 
waking  hours  and  your  dreams  are  filled  with  thoughts  of  your 
work  and  you  are  possessed  with  a  burning  desire  to  better  your 
work,  until  you  have  thought  about  it  enough  to  make  it  the 
great  passion  of  your  life — completely  living  that  life  which  you 
have  erected  as  an  ideal."  No  one  ever  arrives  at  that  stage 
of  burning  zeal  and  enthusiasm  without  first  having  studied 
long  and  deeply. 

The  subject  matter  must  be  adapted  to  the  age,  capacities,  and 
apperceptive  insight  of  the  child.  Even  in  the  university  the 
same  principle  should  be  observed.  Where  entire  freedom  of 
choice  obtains,  the  student  is  as  liable  to  elect  teachers  as  sub- 
jects, and  often  selects  subjects  for  which  he  has  had  no  proper 
preparation.  Every  elective  should  have  certain  prerequisites 
for  its  pursuit.  We  want  the  subject  to  take  a  vital  hold  upon 
the  individual;  he  should  form  desires  to  pursue  it;  it  should 
become  a  part  of  him  so  that  it  influences  conduct.  The 
arithmetic  that  is  never  applied  in  daily  life  spontaneously  by 
the  pupil  is  of  little  account;  the  history  that  is  never  drawn 
upon  to  measure  present  human  conduct  has  not  borne  proper 
fruit. 

If  a  child  does  not  become  readily  interested  in  a  lesson,  it  is 
better  to  seek  something  that  will  interest  him.  If  he  has  suffi- 
cient apperception  for  the  given  lesson,  his  readiness  to  be  influ- 
enced by  suggestion  will  easily  turn  him  toward  your  cause. 
Spencer  says:  "This  need  for  perpetual  telling  is  the  result  of 
our  stupidity,  not  of  the  child's.  We  drag  it  away  from  the  facts 
in  which  it  is  interested,  and  which  it  is  actively  assimilating  of 
itself;  we  put  before  it  facts  far  too  complex  for  it  to  under- 
stand, and  therefore  distasteful  to  it."  1  "  Apperception  masses," 
according  to  Herbart,  are  really  determinative  of  one's  interests. 
In  his  psychology  volition  is  dependent  upon  ideas.  There  is 
no  independent  or  transcendent  faculty  whose  function  is  to  will, 

'Spencer,  Education,  p.  126. 


690  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

He  believes  that  ideas  of  right  will  develop  into  ideals  of  conduct 
and  that  these  ideals  will  become  strivings  toward  virtuous 
action.  Hence  it  is  of  great  importance  that  the  child  should 
form  interests  through  the  subject-matter  of  instruction  which 
may  develop  into  permanent  life-interests.  In  this  view  the  char- 
acter of  the  subject-matter  of  instruction  becomes  of  the  highest 
importance.  Purely  formal  instruction  in  subjects  that  do  not 
touch  life  cannot  develop  proper  interests  in  life.  Formal  rules 
of  language,  grammar,  or  arithmetic  cannot  teach  the  golden 
rule.  Hence  the  value  of  literature,  history,  and  other  human- 
istic studies.  Interest,  according  to  Herbart,  is  not  a  means  of 
securing  temporary  attention.  Interest  is  to  remain  a  perma- 
nent and  abiding  attitude  even  after  the  particular  knowledge 
has  been  obliterated  from  the  mind.  Herbart  believed  that 
these  interests  should  be  many-sided. 

Self-activity. — We  should  seek  to  have  the  child  act  spon- 
taneously as  far  as  possible.  This  does  not  preclude  influencing 
him  by  suggestion  and  guidance  toward  a  desirable  line  of  action. 
But  we  should  try  to  have  the  child  form  a  desire  to  reach  a  cer- 
tain end  or  conquer  a  difficulty  for  himself.  When  the  child's 
self-activity  carries  him  forward,  it  is  astonishing  what  results 
may  be  accomplished.  They  are  incomparable  with  those  ob- 
tained through  doing  prescribed  tasks.  "The  spontaneous  ac- 
tivity to  which  children  are  thus  prone,  is  simply  the  pursuit 
of  these  pleasures  which  the  healthful  exercise  of  the  faculties 
gives.  .  .  .  Children  should  be  led  to  make  their  own  investi- 
gations, and  to  draw  their  own  inferences.  They  should  be 
told  as  little  as  possible,  and  induced  to  discover  as  much  as 
possible."  J 

There  are  thousands  of  ways  in  which  their  interest  may  be 
aroused  in  discovering  things  for  themselves  and  accomplishing 
results  unaided.  Normal,  active  children  will  even  resent  help. 
They  say,  "I  want  to  do  that  myself."  They  prove  this  when 
building  with  their  blocks,  when  playing  their  games,  in  the 
various  manual  activities,  and  sometimes  even  in  the  school 

'Spencer,  op.  cit.,  pp.  124,  127. 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  69l 

arts.  Who  has  not  seen  children  delighted  at  discovering  analo- 
gies in  forms  of  objects  and  in  the  use  of  things?  Discovering 
the  spelling  and  pronunciation  of  words,  for  example,  may  be 
made  a  most  delightful  exercise.  The  study  of  plant  and  animal 
life  affords  great  opportunities  for  the  independent  discovery 
of  analogies.  The  child  is  essentially  an  analogical  reasoner. 
There  is  ample  opportunity  in  all  subjects  to  have  pupils  work 
out  independent  conclusions.  Even  in  history  which  is  so  often 
memorized  in  a  purely  mechanical  manner,  questions  may  be 
propounded  which  invite  independent  judgment.  For  example, 
have  the  class  answer  such  questions  as  the  following:  Should 
Gates  have  been  commander-in-chief  ?  Should  Fitz-John  Por- 
ter have  been  court-martialed?  Was  Hayes  elected  president? 
Was  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  unconstitutional  ?  Was  the  pur- 
chase of  Alaska  advantageous  ?  Was  the  Cuban  war  justifiable  ? 
A  similar  procedure  in  literature  would  infuse  new  life  into  what 
is  often  dry  and  uninteresting. 

Aim,  Responsibility,  and  Interest. — A  definite  aim  should  be 
inculcated  very  early  in  the  child's  mind.  This  aim  may  and 
should  undergo  metamorphosis  with  added  experience.  The 
boy's  aim  should  be  more  immediate  than  his  father's,  to  be  sure, 
but  an  aim  he  should  have  and  that  should  be  tenaciously 
striven  for.  No  child  should  grow  up  irresponsible.  Responsi- 
bility promotes  interest  and  gives  zest  to  life.  The  main  differ- 
ences between  country  and  city-bred  children  do  not  result  be- 
cause of  differing  amounts  of  ozone  which  they  have  inspired; 
but  because  of  the  more  permanent  interest  in  tasks  and  the 
greater  fidelity  to  responsibilities  placed  upon  the  country  chil- 
dren. That  is  one  potent  reason  why  so  many  great  men  have 
been  reared  on  the  farm.  Because  of  the  relief  from  all  con- 
tinuous tasks  and  from  all  responsibilities,  the  city  boy  has  not 
learned  to  be  interested  in  performing  duties.  He  is  apt  to  be 
interested  in  the  things  of  the  moment,  those  which  compel 
attention,  those  which  are  entertaining  or  amusing.  The  country 
boy  is  early  habituated  to  perform  tasks  because  they  are  duties. 
Work  must  be  done,  some  one  must  perform  it.  His  father  works 


692  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

steadily.  The  hay  must  be  cut,  or  spoil;  the  stock  must  be  fed, 
or  go  hungry;  the  fence  must  be  mended,  or  danger  will  result 
to  the  crops;  wood  must  be  cut  and  brought  in,  or  dinner  will 
be  late.  He  hears  every  one  say  must,  and  through  habituation 
to  work  and  reflection  upon  consequences,  he,  too,  learns  to  say 
that  "this  and  that  must  be  done,  and  they  seem  to  fall  to  me; 
I  must  do  them."  The  city  child  unfortunately  misses  all  this. 
He  seldom  feels  the  impelling  "I  must,"  except  "I  must  get  my 
lessons,  or  get  punished."  But  he  is  seldom  taught  to  be  on  the 
lookout  for  work.  The  assigned  lesson  over,  he  casts  himself 
adrift,  oftentimes  to  be  caught  in  currents  that  lead  to  mischief. 
The  country  child  has  few  playmates  and  few  playthings;  the 
city  child  has  so  many  that  he  is  surfeited  with  them  and  ceases 
to  be  interested  in  them.  Compare  the  boy  who  makes  a  sled 
with  the  one  who  has  his  sled  and  all  other  toys  bought  for  him. 
The  one  is  interested  in  achieving  an  end,  the  other  is  merely 
temporarily  amused.  Compare  the  boy  who  makes  a  collection 
of  eggs  with  the  one  who  merely  goes  to  the  museum.  The 
one  who  collects  will  have  deeper,  healthier  interests  than  the  one 
who  can  go  at  any  time  but  who  has  never  attempted  to  make  a 
miniature  museum.  The  girl  who  has  some  part  in  making  her 
own  dolls  secures  a  satisfaction  that  is  unapproachable  by  the 
poor  rich  child  who  is  merely  a  spectator.  The  pleasure  of  being 
a  spectator  in  these  directions  is  almost  as  proportionally  unde- 
sirable as  being  a  spectator  instead  of  a  participant  in  a  feast. 
On  the  farm  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  promote  interests  in  a  va- 
riety of  directions.  With  little  suggestion  the  child  can  be  made 
to  have  a  deep  interest  in  animals  and  plants.  One  of  the  surest 
ways  to  launch  these  interests  is  to  make  the  child  a  copartner,  a 
profit  sharer.  Had  farmers  any  pedagogical  tact  there  would 
be  little  difficulty  in  keeping  boys  on  the  farm.  Could  certain 
patches  of  ground  be  set  apart  for  the  boys'  own  use,  could  cer- 
tain animals  be  given  them  to  care  for  and  to  own,  they  would 
not  only  be  interested  in  those  projects  but  they  would  become 
identified  with  the  interests  of  the  whole  farm.  There,  as  in 
every  walk  of  life,  no  one  wants  to  be  merely  a  spectator.  Of 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  693 

course  the  social  question  enters  here,  but  the  same  rule  must 
apply;  make  the  young  people  copartners  in  working  out  better 
social  relations.  Prescription  without  co-operation  is  fatal  here 
as  elsewhere.  No  greater  enthusiasm  has  ever  been  kindled  in 
my  own  life  than  in  the  co-operative  attempts  at  evolving  a 
country  lyceum,  and  in  the  attempt  to  work  out  with  my  father 
better  methods  of  raising  certain  crops. 

One  of  the  gravest  mistakes  in  the  present-day  education  from 
the  kindergarten  through  the  university  is  the  failure  to  impress 
thoroughly  the  duty  of  individual  responsibility.  It  has  come 
about  largely  through  a  misinterpretation  of  the  doctrine  of 
interest  and  the  belief  that  the  child  develops  a  better  type  of 
will  when  freed  from  restraint.  Freedom  from  restraint  has 
come  to  mean  absolvence  from  duties  and  from  training.  On 
every  hand  the  doctrine  is  spread  that  we  ought  to  follow  the 
lead  of  the  child's  interest.  This  is  good  pedagogy  when  we 
follow  a  child's  interest  which  has  come  about  through  a  healthy 
and  normal  development.  But  there  are  many  perverted  and 
unhealthful  interests.  It  is  manifestly  wrong  to  accede  to  the 
child's  wishes  in  such  cases,  simply  because  he  is  interested. 
Moreover  many  apparent  interests  are  mere  passing  whims. 
I  believe  it  is  as  important  that  the  parent  and  teacher  create 
interests,  as  that  they  permit  children  to  follow  their  own  inter- 
ests. More  than  that,  the  teacher  and  parent  should  instil  it  into 
the  minds  of  children  that  it  is  a  duty  incumbent  on  them  to  be 
interested  in  right,  important,  and  uplifting  things. 

I  believe  it  is  not  due  to  a  fit  of  indigestion  that  I  am  led 
to  feel  that  children  of  the  present  are  not  sufficiently  indoctri- 
nated with  the  idea  of  duty  and  individual  responsibility.  Is 
it  not  manifest  in  all  grades  of  school  ?  Is  it  not  manifest  in  the 
university?  And  is  it  not  discernible  in  the  home?  The  child 
goes  to  school  and  performs  his  tasks  because  he  is  entertained, 
and  as  soon  as  the  teacher  fails  as  an  entertainment  committee 
the  child  says  mentally,  and  even  openly  charges,  that  because 
the  teacher  is  not  interesting  he  is  not  obliged  to  be  attentive. 
His  assigned  work  over,  he  is  in  mischief.  He  has  not  been 


694  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

taught  to  set  himself  to  work.  In  the  high  schools  and  colleges 
the  youth  often  puts  himself  in  a  contest  with  the  teacher,  saying: 
"  Now  if  you  entertain  me,  I'll  keep  awake  and  I'll  attend  your 
classes.  If  not,  I'll  bring  discredit  upon  you  by  going  to  sleep, 
or  I'll  elect  a  course  somewhere  else."  Now  the  collegian  who 
does  not  maintain  an  interest  by  his  own  initiative  ought  not  to 
be  in  class.  The  adult  who  goes  to  sleep  during  a  lecture  or  in 
church  is  in  the  kindergarten  stage  and  ought  to  be  in  the 
kindergarten.  His  presence  ought  to  be  evidence  that  he  is  to 
co-operate.  Duty  is  not  taught  best  through  preaching.  The 
habit  of  attending  to  regularly  recurring  work  is  what  teaches 
duty,  just  as  the  habit  of  being  polite  teaches  one  to  be 
polite. 

President  Faunce  expresses  gratification  that  pupils  learned 
"  In  the  days  of  narrow  outlook  and  wearisome  drill  at  least  to 
possess  courage  in  the  face  of  obstacles,  and  patience  under 
monotony,  and  resolution  to  rise  after  falling,  and  that  some- 
thing of  the  granite  of  the  New  England  hills  was  in  the  training 
of  the  old  New  England  teacher.  We  need  not  invent  difficulties 
for  pupils.  But  we  need  not  hide  their  existence.  Unless  our 
pupils  learn  'to  endure  hardness  as  a  good  soldier,'  they  are  not 
prepared  for  real  life.  In  pleading  for  variety  of  approach  to 
the  pupil,  we  are  not  praising  the  dictum  of  Rousseau  that 
'duty  and  obligation  should  never  be  mentioned  to  a  child,' 
and  we  are  not  endorsing  the  soft  pedagogics  of  our  time,  or  the 
'flower-pot'  education  which  would  shelter  the  child  from  the 
sterner  facts  of  life.  When  we  find  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
writing  from  his  bed  in  Samoa:  'To  me  the  medicine  bottles  on 
my  chimney  and  the  blood  on  my  handkerchief  are  accidents; 
they  do  not  color  my  view  of  life,'  we  are  reading  the  record  of  a 
soul  that  had  been  educated  by  more  than  games  and  toys,  and 
had  triumphed  over  care,  and  fear  and  pain.  We  shall  never 
discover  in  our  schools  those  pupils  who  are  destined  to  be  re- 
formers, patriots,  statesmen,  leaders  in  moral  enterprise,  unless 
we  sound  the  eternal  note  of  duty,  face  unflinchingly  the  ethical 
facts  of  the  universe,  and  in  appealing  to  'interest'  remember 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  695 

that  the  profoundest  of  all  human  interests  is  the  interest  in  the 
triumph  of  righteousness  in  all  the  earth."  1 

Co-operation  of  parents  with  teachers  is  one  of  the  surest 
means  of  producing  genuine  interest  in  school-work.  The  par- 
ent who  does  not  know  what  his  children  are  doing  every  day 
in  school  must  not  be  surprised  if  some  day  the  child  plays 
truant  or  becomes  apathetic  toward  his  studies.  I  have  never 
known  many  cases  where  parents  were  intelligently  interested 
in  the  child's  progress  in  which  the  child  himself  was  not  like- 
wise interested.  Many  fathers  are  too  absorbed  in  their  banks, 
their  merchandise,  their  railroad,  to  know  anything  about  their 
children.  They  scarcely  ever  see  them  by  daylight  and  never 
have  time  to  talk  with  them  and  really  know  what  they  are  doing. 
One-half  the  interest  and  concern  that  many  a  father  accords  to 
his  trotting  horse,  his  yacht,  his  automobile,  his  favorite  base-ball 
team,  accorded  to  an  identification  of  interests  with  his  children 
would  work  wonders  in  child  saving.  No  wonder  that  the  in- 
dictment is  sometimes  made  that  many  men  are  successful  in 
all  kinds  of  business  except  rearing  boys  and  girls  properly. 

Interest  in  Self -improvement. — Boys  ought  to  be  taught  to 
be  as  absorbed  and  interested  in  their  school-work  as  they 
would  be  if  working  for  wages  and  trying  to  capture  a  bank 
presidency.  School-work  is  apt  to  be  done  as  prescribed  tasks 
which  it  is  deemed  honorable  to  shirk  if  possible.  Parents 
should  take  the  same  pains  to  have  children  please  others  and 
to  succeed  in  school  as  if  in  a  mercantile  establishment.  A 
false  code  of  school  ethics  has  sprung  up.  Children  should  be 
taught  to  do  with  all  their  mind  and  will  and  strength  whatever 
seems  right  to  do.  Pitch  in  and  interest  follows.  No  one  will 
ever  get  up  a  white  heat  of  interest  by  waiting  for  interest  to 
come  before  beginning  a  task.  Assume  the  attitude  of  interest 
and  interest  will  follow,  is  the  Lange- James  law  of  feeling,  and 
it  is  certainly  operative  here. 

Young  people  should  learn  to  set  themselves  to  work.  There 
will  not  always  be  some  one  around  creating  artificial  incen- 

1  School  Review,  8  :  577. 


696  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

tives  to  work,  hence  the  necessity  of  learning  to  throw  one's 
self  into  work,  believing  that  interest  will  follow  as  soon  as  one 
becomes  warmed  up  to  his  task.  Far  too  much  stress  is  placed 
upon  making  things  interesting  for  pupils  and  too  little  upon 
enlisting  their  own  interest  and  effort.  Pupils  are  virtually 
taught  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  personal  responsibility 
and  are  to  look  to  the  teacher  to  create  all  interest.  This  is  a 
pernicious  doctrine.  I  have  watched  the  career  of  several  boys 
who  have  grown  up  with  this  idea  firmly  implanted  in  their 
minds.  To  all  advice  that  they  ought  to  pitch  in  because  there 
was  a  personal  obligation  resting  upon  them  to  help  their  parents 
and  also  to  make  something  of  themselves,  their  only  answer 
was,  "I  don't  have  to  because  I  don't  like  that."  They  have 
reached  middle  life  and  are  still  seeking  something  which  they  will 
like.  They  have  drifted  from  occupation  to  occupation,  and  from 
occupation  to  idleness,  and  nothing,  not  even  idleness,  has  been 
more  than  momentarily  interesting.  This  is  the  inevitable 
result  of  making  pleasure  the  sole  object  of  life.  The  pleasure- 
seeker  is  the  least  interested  and  most  miserable  being  alive. 
Teach  the  children  responsibility  and  obligation  to  self  and  to 
society  and  unflagging  persistence  in  accomplishing  in  the  best 
way  "whatsoever  their  hands  find  to  do"  and  the  matter  of 
interest  will  in  adult  life  largely  care  for  itself. 

President  Eliot  said1  that  "Education  for  efficiency  should 
supply  every  pupil  with  the  motive  power  of  some  enthusiasm 
or  devotion.  The  real  motive  power  in  every  human  life,  and 
in  all  national  life,  is  sentiment,  and  the  highest  efficiency  cannot 
be  produced  in  any  human  being  unless  his  whole  character  and 
his  whole  activity  be  dominated  by  some  sentiment  or  passion. 
An  evil  passion  may  give  great  physical  and  intellectual  powers 
a  terrible  efficiency.  A  good  passion  can  make  ordinary  talents 
extraordinarily  effective.  A  life  without  a  prevailing  enthusiasm 
is  sure  not  to  rise  to  its  highest  level.  These  private  enthusiasms 
or  devotions  are  fortunately  almost  as  various  as  are  the  char- 
acters of  men." 

1  Journal  of  Pedagogy,  17  :  112. 


INTEREST  AND   EDUCATION  697 

By  the  age  of  eleven  or  twelve  years  children  should  begin  to 
feel  a  duty  in  being  interested  in  worthy  things.  Something  is 
wrong  when  a  child  of  that  age  will  take  no  responsibility  in 
interesting  himself;  when  he  goes  to  school  and  throws  the  entire 
burden  upon  the  teacher.  He  has  no  right  to  say  that  "the 
teacher  is  dry  and  uninteresting,  therefore  my  responsibility  for 
attentiveness  ends."  He  is  morally  responsible  for  finding  some 
interest  through  proper  diligence  and  application.  As  previously 
suggested,  teachers  are  often  to  blame  for  leading  pupils  to  think 
of  them  as  an  entertainment  committee.  At  best  their  stock  of 
entertainment  is  not  perennial  and  the  time  will  come  when 
interest,  if  present  at  all,  must  be  a  result  of  accumulated  knowl- 
edge in  the  pupil's  own  mind.  What  the  teacher  or  the  books 
impart  in  a  serious,  undramatic,  matter-of-fact  manner  will  only 
prove  interesting  if  the  new  ideas  find  congenial  companionship 
through  previously  assimilated  knowledge.  The  new  notes  can 
only  vibrate  in  unison  and  harmony  if  the  mind  has  previously 
been  attuned  through  similar  notes. 

Students  have  no  right  to  expect  to  be  merely  entertained. 
They  should  feel  it  incumbent  upon  themselves  to  contribute 
their  share  toward  self-interest  and  also  to  class  interest.  With 
the  wealth  of  well-written  books  now  accessible  high-school  and 
college  students  ought  to  progress  and  maintain  healthy  interests 
in  their  studies,  even  with  very  indifferent  teachers.  This  is  not 
an  apology  for  poor  teaching.  The  teacher's  duty  in  helping 
to  maintain  interest  is  in  no  way  lessened.  But  it  takes  two 
parties  to  maintain  good  class-work — a  good  teacher  and  a 
responsive,  responsible  class.  An  irresponsible-minded  class 
becomes  much  like  the  kindergarten  children  above  mentioned, 
even  under  good  tuition.  The  pupil  must  learn  that  interest 
comes  through  aim,  responsibility,  responsiveness,  and  apper- 
ception. 

In  cases  where  children  are  coddled  in  the  attempt  to  make  all 
things  interesting  "  there  is  oscillation  of  excitement  and  apathy. 
The  child  alternates  between  periods  of  over-stimulation  and  of 
inertness.  It  is  a  condition  realized  in  some  so-called  kinder- 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

gartens.  Moreover,  this  excitation  of  any  particular  organ,  as 
eye  or  ear,  by  itself,  creates  an  abiding  demand  for  such  stimula- 
tion. It  is  as  possible  to  create  an  appetite  on  the  part  of  the 
eye  or  the  ear  for  pleasurable  stimulation  as  it  is  on  the  part  of 
the  taste.  Some  kindergarten  children  are  as  dependent  upon 
the  recurrent  presence  of  bright  colors  or  agreeable  sounds  as 
the  drunkard  is  upon  his  dram.  It  is  this  which  accounts  for 
the  distraction  and  dissipation  of  energy  so  characteristic  of  such 
children,  and  for  their  dependence  upon  external  suggestion."  1 

Dr.  E.  Benjamin  Andrews  believes  that  at  present  in  this 
country  there  is  too  much  dependence  upon  involuntary  atten- 
tion. That  is,  there  is  too  much  stress  laid  upon  pleasing 
children.  Too  many  boys  and  girls  after  leaving  school,  he 
writes,2  have  a  disinclination  to  make  earnest  effort  of  any  kind. 
"  They  have  not  the  power  of  strong  exertion.  They  lack  cour- 
age, resolution,  'sand.'  They  are  afraid  to  take  the  initiative. 
The  typical  pupil  of  to-day  must  be  interested  (amused)  before 
he  can  act.  The  pedagogy  of  gush  has  brought  him  to  look  to 
his  teacher  for  interest,  and  not  to  find  it  in  himself.  It  is 
beaten  into  his  mind  that  his  teacher  must  keep  him  attentive. 
If  a  suggested  task  is  not  interesting  (pleasing)  he  cannot  think 
of  it  as  having  any  claims  upon  him.  Little  of  the  tonic  that 
comes  from  driving  the  will  to  perform  unpleasant  duties  is 
ever  given  him." 

The  child  should  not  be  led  to  expect  to  be  amused  all  his 
life.  He  should  learn  to  do  properly  things  which  constituted 
authority  demands  and  thus  build  up  right  habits.  Habits  will 
beget  interest  through  the  law  of  overcoming  resistance  and 
through  apperception.  How  many  pupils  in  school  work  them- 
selves up  to  that  degree  of  interest  where  they  take  themselves 
in  hand  ?  They  do  this  in  other  directions,  as  in  base-ball,  foot- 
ball, and  other  games  and  sports,  and  with  great  results. 

Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  how  unnecessarily  long  pupils  may 
pursue  some  subjects  and  not  learn  them  well  after  all  ?  Take 
penmanship,  for  example.  Most  schools  devote  to  this  subject 

1  Dewey,  he.  cit..  p.  u.  2  Educational  Review,  March,  190*. 


INTEREST  AND  EDUCATION  699 

one  period  of  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  daily  for  eight  or  nine 
years,  and  then  not  half  the  pupils  can  write  a  legible,  rapid  hand. 
At  one  time  I  began  to  reflect  on  the  wasteful,  half-hearted, 
abortive  process.  I  watched  the  daily  evolutions  of  these  young 
soldiers  going  through  the  aimless  (to  them)  manoeuvres.  They 
expected  that  they  would  have  to  do  the  same  for  eight  years, 
anyway.  Time  enough  later  on  to  improve.  Do  as  little  as 
possible  now.  I  tried  an  experiment.  The  pupils  were  told 
that  penmanship  would  be  a  required  exercise  until  they  could 
write  a  plain,  legible  hand  with  fair  rapidity.  As  soon  as  this 
degree  of  proficiency  could  be  attained  and  manifested  in  their 
usual  work  each  one  should  be  excused.  The  results  were 
amazing.  Soon  there  were  self-seeking  candidates  for  the 
privilege  of  being  excused.  They  began  to  coach  themselves. 
They  now  had  a  desirable  aim  which  enlisted  their  deepest 
interest.  They  asked  for  information  and  help  instead  of  being 
unwilling  recipients.  The  majority  of  the  pupils  were  excused 
in  either  the  fourth  or  fifth  grades,  and  seldom  was  one  demoted 
for  further  dereliction.  A  similar  plan  was  adopted  in  spelling, 
with  splendid  results.  They  had  no  longer  to  be  taught.  Their 
interests  prompted  them  to  teach  themselves.  Whenever  the 
individual  instead  of  the  class  was  made  the  basis  for  promotion, 
I  found  largely  similar  results. 

To  say  that  we  ought  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  child's  interest 
is  good  pedagogy  provided  his  interests  are  healthy  and  have 
come  about  through  normal  development.  But  there  are  many 
unhealthy  and  perverted  interests.  It  is  manifestly  wrong  to 
obey  these.  Moreover  apparent  interests  are  many  times  mere 
passing  whims.  It  is  as  important  that  parents  and  teachers 
create  interests  as  it  is  that  they  follow  those  exhibited  by  the 
child.  As  with  instincts,  some  are  good,  others  bad.  The  good 
ones  are  to  be  nourished,  the  bad  stifled  or  diverted.  It  is  not 
more  safe  to  follow  the  child's  interests  than  his  appetites  for 
food.  Left  entirely  to  himself  in  the  matter,  he  sometimes  se- 
lects pickles  and  jam,  or  superabundance  of  starches,  rather 
than  those  things  that  are  nutritious. 


700  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

It  is  not  a  question  of  having  the  child  interested,  but  of  more 
importance,  having  him  interested  in  worthy  things.  It  is  a 
mistake  to  think  that  at  all  events  children  must  be  happy. 
Happiness  is  desirable,  but  not  the  only  desideratum.  Better  be 
less  happy  and  more  serious,  if  occupied  with  right  thoughts  and 
actions,  than  happy  in  evil  or  idle  things.  Better  be  serious  in 
work  than  happy  in  sin  and  wickedness.  Momentary  pleasure 
in  childhood  does  not  insure  life-long  happiness.  The  child 
should  early  learn  that  his  own  selfish  gratification  must  often 
be  subordinated  to  the  welfare  of  others — the  family  and  society. 
As  with  instincts,  we  cannot  trust  all  to  the  child.  Rightly  con- 
stituted authority  must  set  up  ideals  and  standards  toward 
which  individuals  and  society  must  be  guided,  and  sometimes 
even  coerced.  Apropos  of  this  point  a  paragraph  from  Herbart 
may  be  quoted:  "Interest  means  self-activity.  The  demand 
for  a  many-sided  interest  is,  therefore,  a  demand  for  many-sided 
activity.  But  not  all  self-activity,  only  the  right  degree  of  the 
right  kind,  is  desirable;  else  lively  children  might  very  well  be 
left  to  themselves.  There  would  be  no  need  of  educating  or 
even  governing  them.  It  is  the  purpose  of  education  to  give 
the  right  direction  to  their  thought  and  impulses,  to  incline  these 
to  the  morally  good  and  true."  1  To  become  deeply  interested 
in  things  that  are  worthy  and  ennobling  is  of  more  value  than 
learning.  The  right  attitude  toward  life  is  of  the  greatest 
importance.  Too  many  are  secretly  or  openly  interested  in 
ignoble  things. 

Adolescence  and  Life  Interests. — It  is  during  adolescence,  that 
period  of  enlarged  vision  and  superabundant  life,  that  inter- 
ests and  enthusiasms  are  at  a  white  heat.  Out  of  the  manifold 
interests  then  dominant  some  will  become  crystallized  into  the 
permanent  life-interests.  The  stamp  which  is  impressed  upon 
the  youthful  life  will  become  fixed  forever.  Just  as  conversions 
rarely  occur  in  maturity,  just  as  a  criminal  usually  enters  upon 
his  career  in  the  morning  of  life,  so  lives  of  usefulness,  happiness, 
and  virtue  are  launched  while  the  heart  is  yet  young. 

1  Outline  of  Educational  Doctrine,  translated  by  Lange,  p.  60. 


INTEREST  AND  EDUCATION  701 

President  Eliot  wrote:1  "Any  one  who  has  read  many  biog- 
raphies will  have  perceived  that  the  guiding  enthusiasm  of  a 
life  often  springs  early  into  view  and  that  this  is  almost  always 
the  case  in  the  most  effective  human  beings.  The  youth  has  a 
vision  of  the  life  he  would  like  to  live,  of  the  service  he  would 
choose  to  render,  of  the  power  he  would  prefer  to  exercise,  and 
for  fifty  years  he  pursues  this  vision.  In  almost  all  great  men 
the  leading  idea  of  the  life  is  caught  early,  or  a  principle  or 
thesis  conies  to  mind  during  youth  which  the  entire  adult  life  is 
too  short  to  develop  thoroughly.  Most  great  teachers  have 
started  with  a  theory,  or  a  single  idea  or  group  of  ideas,  to  the 
working  out  of  which  in  practice  they  have  given  their  lives. 
Many  great  preachers  have  really  had  but  one  theme.  Many 
architects  have  devoted  themselves,  with  inexhaustible  enthu- 
siasm, to  a  single  style  of  architecture.  Some  of  the  greatest 
soldiers  have  fought  all  their  battles  by  one  sort  of  strategy 
adopted  in  their  youth.  Many  great  rulers  have  harped  all 
their  lives  on  only  one  string  of  national  or  racial  sentiment. 
Among  men  of  science  the  instances  are  innumerable  in  which 
a  whole  life  has  been  devoted  to  the  patient  pursuit  of  a  single 
vision  seen  in  youth." 

It  is  seldom  that  an  entirely  new  occupation  is  entered  upon 
with  success  after  middle  life.  After  that  a  splendid  super- 
structure may  be  erected,  but  the  foundations  must  have  been 
laid  in  early  life.  Although  young  shoulders  should  not  become 
bowed  down  by  an  overweening  sense  of  responsibility,  yet  it  is 
sinful  not  to  impress  the  young  with  the  importance  of  the  morn- 
ing of  life.  The  old  adage  that  it  is  never  too  late  to  mend  should 
be  replaced  by  the  one  that  it  is  ever  too  late  to  become  what  one 
might  have  been,  if  an  opportunity  has  been  allowed  to  slip. 
Students  should  early  recognize  the  importance  of  making  the 
most  of  the  morning  of  life.  Biologists  have  come  to  recognize 
the  economic  value  of  the  period  of  infancy.  This  is  a  time 
of  plasticity,  a  time  when  the  individual  can  be  moulded  and 
modified;  in  other  words  educated.  The  longer  the  period  of 

1  Journal  of  Pedagogy,  17  :  112. 


702  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

infancy  the  higher  the  degree  of  educability.  The  newly-hatched 
chick  has  a  short  period  of  infancy.  On  emerging  from  the 
egg  it  can  perform  almost  all  the  activities  which  it  will  ever 
be  able  to  perform.  It  has  very  little  to  learn,  very  little  possi- 
bility of  learning,  and  very  little  time  in  which  to  learn.  The 
young  dog  has  more  to  learn,  a  longer  season  in  which  to 
learn  it,  and  larger  possibilities  of  acquiring  new  activities.  The 
human  being  has  the  longest  period  of  infancy.  By  infancy  I 
do  not  mean  alone  the  period  when  the  child  is  in  the  cradle. 
Biologically  it  includes  all  of  life  from  birth  to  maturity.  After 
this  period,  the  possibilities  of  education  grow  less  and  less. 

Brain  workers  inaugurate  their  best  work  between  the  ages 
of  twenty-five  and  forty-five;  before  that  they  are  preparing  for 
work,  after  that  their  work  no  matter  how  extensive  is  largely 
routine.  Lawyers  and  physicians  do  much  of  their  practice 
after  forty,  but  the  learning  was  accomplished  before  forty  or 
forty-five.  Successful  merchants  lay  the  foundations  for  wealth 
and  success  in  youth  and  middle  life.  The  great  men  that  we 
know  are  all  old  men;  but  the  foundations  for  their  greatness 
were  laid  when  they  were  young.  Philosophers  have  founded 
and  announced  their  systems  in  youth  and  early  manhood; 
divines  and  religious  teachers  have  originated  their  creeds  and 
have  been  most  effective  as  preachers  in  early  manhood.  States- 
men have  projected  their  greatest  acts  of  legislation,  diplomacy, 
and  reform  in  early  life.  In  the  morning  of  life  scientists  have 
wrought  out  the  data  and  practically  formulated  their  theories; 
generals  and  admirals  have  gained  their  greatest  victories;  lawyers 
have  paved  the  way  for  leadership  at  the  bar;  physicians  have 
laid  the  groundwork  for  their  greatest  discoveries;  poets  and 
artists  and  musicians  have  planned  and  in  many  instances  exe- 
cuted their  greatest  masterpieces;  engineers  have  planned  the 
greatest  monuments.  The  war  in  Africa  was  begun  with  old 
men  for  counsel  and  the  young  men  in  the  field.  But  before 
decisive  results  came,  young  men  were  also  directing  affairs. 

A  few  instances  may  be  cited  to  show  that  the  world's  leaders 
in  all  lines  of  progress  have  either  become  illustrious  early  in 


INTEREST   AND   EDUCATION  703 

life  or  have  done  the  thinking  which  they  have  reserved  for  later 
expression.  Dickens  began  early  to  write.  The  Pickwick 
Papers  was  produced  at  25.  The  works  which  have  immortal- 
ized his  name  were  all  produced  before  40.  Ruskin  had  com- 
pleted the  first  part  of  his  greatest  work,  Modern  Painters,  at 
28.  Shakespeare  had  produced  some  of  his  immortal  plays 
before  36.  Bunyan  had  depicted  man's  cycles  of  hopes,  sor- 
rows, and  despair  before  35.  Byron  and  Burns  died  at  36, 
Keats  and  Marlowe  at  29,  and  Shelley  at  30.  Coleridge  wrote 
his  Ancient  Mariner  at  25,  Goethe  and  Victor  Hugo  had  pro- 
duced works  of  lasting  value  at  20.  If  Carlyle  had  died  at  45 
the  loss  to  literature  would  not  have  been  great.  Lord  Bacon 
had  begun  to  philosophize  at  16,  and  at  36  had  published  twelve 
of  his  essays.  At  29  Descartes  began  to  outline  his  system,  and 
at  41  to  publish  it.  Schelling  was  a  renowned  university  pro- 
fessor of  philosophy  at  28.  Emerson  expressed  the  essence  of  his 
philosophy  between  25  and  40.  His  essays  first  appeared  at 

38,  though  they  had  been  uppermost  in  his  thoughts  from  early 
manhood. 

Edison  was  a  young  inventor.  In  fact,  all  inventors  are 
young.  Eli  Whitney  was  noted  at  27,  Colt  at  21,  Fulton  at  28, 
Dreyse  at  42,  Graefe  at  25.  Alexander  the  Great  had  con- 
quered Greece  at  21,  Persia  at  25,  and  had  completed  his 
history  at  33.  Julius  Cassar  began  to  take  part  in  the  great 
drama  for  which  he  is  remembered  at  17,  Hannibal  at  29, 
William  the  Conquerer  before  20,  Crormvell  before  30,  Marl- 
borough  at  32,  Napoleon  at  25,  Wellington  at  25,  Nelson  at 

39.  Among  artists  and  sculptors  about  three  out  of  four  have 
shown   decided   promise    before    15.     Michelangelo   produced 
great  works  by  19.     Raphael  and  Van  Dyck  painted  famous 
pictures  before  reaching  their  majority.     Rembrandt  was  famous 
at   24.     Among   musicians   we   may  cite   Mozart,    Beethoven, 
Mendelssohn,  Schubert,  and  Schumann  as  real  producers  before 
20;  in  fact,  each  produced  something  original  by  13. 

If  we  turn  to  muscle  workers  we  find  that  early  in  life  they 
reach  their  maximum  and  that  their  capacity  is  either  station- 


704  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

ary  or  has  begun  to  decline  at  35  or  40.  This  is  true  of  all 
athletes,  oarsmen,  pedestrians,  lumbermen,  guides,  farmers,  and 
soldiers.  Beard  says:  "To  get  the  best  soldiers  we  must  rob 
neither  the  cradle  nor  the  grave,  but  select  from  those  decades 
when  the  best  brain  work  of  the  world  is  done."  It  has  been 
statistically  determined  by  Sir  Crichton  Browne  in  England 
that  among  the  handicrafts  of  weaving,  button  making,  and 
pottery  making  there  is  an  increase  in  proficiency  from  17  to  30, 
when  the  maximum  is  attained.  From  30  to  45  there  is  an 
equilibrium,  and  after  that  a  gradual  decline. 

We  are  therefore  strongly  admonished  that  the  most  possible 
should  be  made  of  early  life.  Youth  is  the  time  of  great  oppor- 
tunities which  come  but  once.  We  build  for  eternity.  The 
youth  cannot  sow  wild  oats  and  expect  to  reap  a  character  of 
noble  manhood  and  womanhood.  "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth 
that  shall  he  also  reap."  Luther  once  said:  "If  a  man  is  not 
handsome  at  20,  strong  at  30,  learned  at  40,  and  rich  at  50,  he 
will  never  be  handsome,  strong,  learned,  or  rich  in  the  world.': 


XXVII 
VOLITION  AND  MORAL  EDUCATION 

Meaning  of  Will. — Will  is  ordinarily  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  an 
entity,  a  something  which  compels  us  to  follow  some  line  of 
action  rather  than  another.  It  is  said,  for  example:  "He  kept 
up  by  sheer  force  of  his  strong  will,"  "His  iron  will  carried  him 
onward,"  or  "His  will  weakened,"  "He  failed  because  he  lacked 
will,"  etc.  One  person  is  said  to  have  a  firm  will  and  another 
one  that  is  vacillating.  Will  is  thus  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
psychological  ghost  which  continually  pursues  us  compelling  or 
prohibiting  whatever  we  undertake  to  do.  It  is  regarded  as  a 
transcendental  something  outside  of  the  self  and  apparently 
not  subject  to  the  usual  laws  governing  mental  life.  Every 
one  is  supposed  to  have  a  will  of  inherent  and  unmodifiable 
quantity  and  quality.  Each  is  supposed  to  be  ushered  into 
the  world  with  a  particular  species  of  will  to  be  his  life-long 
dictator. 

A  little  reflection  ought  to  convince  us,  however,  that  the  will 
is  not  a  separate  and  transcendental  entity,  but  that  all  volition 
conforms  to  universal  laws  of  psychic  action.  From  previous 
discussions  we  have  seen  that  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
conceptions  of  mental  life  is  that  of  its  unity.  The  mind  is  not  a 
sum  of  separate  faculties  each  of  which  functions  independently 
of  the  others.  There  is  no  intellectual  activity  without  some 
feeling-tone;  there  is  no  feeling  without  some  accompanying 
knowledge.  Likewise  there  is  no  such  thing  as  pure  volition 
without  some  feeling  and  some  intellection.  Why  do  we  will? 
Because  we  desire  something.  Why  do  we  desire  it  ?  Because  we 
have  knowledge  of  it,  and  it  seems  to  possess  some  worth  for  us; 
because  we  have  had  experiences  which  have  left  tendencies 

705 


706  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

toward  the  particular  action.  We  give  it  our  attention  which  is 
the  same  thing  as  choosing  or  selecting  it.  I  have  emphasized 
this  view-point  because  it  is  so  important  in  considering  will 
training  to  bear  in  mind  the  interrelation  between  these  psychic 
activities.  The  will  can  no  more  be  isolated  for  the  purpose  of 
training  than  we  can  isolate  mind  or  body  from  each  other. 
The  will  is  the  dynamic  or  active  phase  of  any  mental  state.  It 
always  exists  in  concomitance  with  states  of  knowing  and  states 
of  feeling.  Cognitive  experiences  come  to  possess  certain  values 
for  a  given  mind  and  it  is  said  to  have  feelings  or  emotions. 
Because  of  the  values  attached  (feelings,  emotions),  it  strives  to 
accomplish  certain  ends — actions,  inhibitions,  etc.  (wills). 

In  this  connection  Royce  writes  that  our  minds  are  full  of 
"passing  impulses,  of  tendencies  to  action,  of  passions,  and  of 
concerns  for  what  we  take  to  be  our  welfare.  All  these  impulses 
and  concerns  get  woven,  by  the  laws  of  habit,  into  systems  of 
ruling  motives  which  express  themselves  without  in  our  regular 
fashions  of  conduct.  The  whole  of  our  inner  life,  viewed  in  this 
aspect,  appears  as  the  purposive  side  of  our  consciousness,  or  as 
the  will  in  the  wider  sense."  1 

Genesis  of  a  Voluntary  Action. — In  order  to  understand  fully 
developed  volitional  acts  let  us  examine  the  genesis  of  a  volun- 
tary act,  for  example,  throwing  at  a  mark.  We  throw  at  the 
mark  and  do  not  succeed.  But  in  so  doing  we  have  gained  cer- 
tain experiences — muscular,  auditory,  etc.  Each  of  these  ex- 
periences leaves  a  memory.  It  may  be  a  visual  memory  of  the 
appearance  of  the  mark  and  of  the  distance,  or  it  may  be  the 
kinassthetic  memory  of  the  position  of  the  arm  as  it  was  raised, 
as  the  missile  was  hurled,  of  the  position  of  the  hand  and  the 
fingers  as  the  missile  was  released,  etc.  All  of  these  memories 
are  taken  account  of  in  gauging  the  next  trial.  We  know,  for 
example,  how  wide  of  the  mark  we  came  and  how  much  muscular 
tension  was  exerted,  at  what  height  the  object  was  released. 
These  memories  we  compare  with  our  ideas  of  the  amount  of 
force  that  ought  to  be  exerted,  the  modified  positions  to  be  taken 

1  Royce,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  367. 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        707 

by  the  arm  and  hand,  and  other  conditions  which  we  think  ought 
to  bring  about  the  desired  end.  We  try  again  and  possibly  err 
in  the  opposite  direction.  The  memories  of  this  experience  are 
now  compared  with  the  former  ones  and  also  with  the  imagined 
necessary  ones  and  we  repeat  the  trial,  trying  to  correct  all  the 
former  errors.  If  perchance  we  have  accidentally  hit  the  mark 
the  first  time  the  case  is  fundamentally  the  same.  In  either  case 
we  try  to  remember  the  sensations  and  perceptions  gained  under 
these  conditions  and  then  endeavor  to  repeat  them.  It  takes 
many  trials  before  we  can  perform  the  action  purposively,  be- 
cause our  memories  of  the  movement  are  so  fleeting  and  im- 
perfect, and  our  ideas  of  what  is  necessary  are  so  indefinite.  At 
first  we  can  not  know  just  what  to  do  because  we  can  have  no 
accurate  idea  of  the  end  until  we  have  actually  accomplished 
the  end. 

From  this  analysis  we  see  that  in  order  to  perform  an  act  volun- 
tarily we  must  have  (a)  an  idea  (not  necessarily  a  conscious  idea) 
of  the  end  to  be  accomplished,  and  (6)  a  stock  of  memories  of 
former  experiences  from  which  a  suitable  selection  can  be  used 
in  guiding  action  toward  the  ideal  end.  This  idea  of  the  end  to 
be  accomplished  includes  not  only  an  idea  of  what  is  to  be  done, 
but  also  the  idea  of  how  to  do  it.  On  first  consideration  this 
may  seem  a  startling  statement.  The  inquiry  will  at  once  be 
raised  as  to  how  we  can  ever  perform  an  act  voluntarily  if  we 
must  first  know  definitely  how  to  accomplish  the  act  and  if  that 
knowledge  can  only  be  gained  by  actual  performance  of  it. 
Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  however,  no  act  can  be  performed 
voluntarily  until  it  has  been  first  performed  non-voluntarily. 
This  does  not  mean  that  as  a  whole  it  must  have  been  performed 
non-voluntarily,  but  that  the  elements  which  enter  into  it  must 
have  been  performed  non-voluntarily.  In  the  case  of  reaching  for 
a  book,  for  example,  we  do  it  at  once  without  difficulty  although 
we  have  never  reached  for  the  identical  book  or  in  that  particular 
place.  But  we  have  moved  the  arm  and  the  hand  m  countless 
directions  previously  and  each  of  these  Teachings  has  been  re- 
corded in  memory.  Now  when  we  wish  to  reach  for  a  particular 


708  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

book  in  a  particular  place  we  select  from  all  the  past  experiences 
certain  elements  and  combine  those  elements  into  a  new  whole 
and  perform  the  new  action  with  ease. 

James  writes  that  "no  creature  not  endowed  with  divinatory 
power  can  perform  an  act  voluntarily  the  first  time."  But  as 
we  are  not  endowed  with  prophetic  power  we  must  wait  for  the 
movements  to  be  performed  involuntarily  before  we  can  frame 
ideas  of  what  they  are.  "We  learn  all  our  possibilities  by  the 
way  of  experience.  When  a  particular  movement,  having  once 
occurred  in  a  random,  reflex,  or  involuntary  way,  has  left  an 
image  of  itself  in  the  memory,  then  the  movement  can  be  desired 
again,  proposed  as  an  end,  and  deliberately  willed.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  see  how  it  could  be  willed  before.  A  supply  of 
ideas  of  the  various  movements  that  are  possible  left  in  the  memory 
by  experiences  of  their  involuntary  performance  is  thus  the  first 
prerequisite  of  the  voluntary  life."  l 

Professor  Royce  voices  the  same  idea  in  the  following  sen- 
tences: "Strange  as  the  statement  may  seem,  we  can  never 
consciously  and  directly  will  any  really  novel  course  of  action. 
We  can  directly  will  an  act  only  when  we  have  before  done  that 
act,  and  have  so  experienced  the  nature  of  it.  The  will  is  as  de- 
pendent as  the  intellect  upon  our  past  experience.  One  can 
indeed  will  an  act  which  is  sure  to  involve,  in  a  given  environ- 
ment, absolutely  novel  consequences;  but  the  act  itself,  so  far 
as  one  wills  it,  is  a  familiar  act.  Thus  a  suicide  can  will  an  act 
which  results  in  his  own  death,  and  so  far  he  seems  to  be  willing 
something  which  wholly  transcends  his  past  experience.  But,  as 
a  fact,  the  act  itself  which  he  makes  the  direct  object  of  his  will 
(e.  g.,  pointing  a  pistol  and  pulling  a  trigger,  or  swallowing  a 
dose)  is  itself  an  act  with  which  he  is  long  since  decidedly 
familiar."  2 

Fundamental  Movements  Involved  in  Volition. — All  voluntary 
actions  utilize  the  conserved  effects  of  previous  experiences— the 
organic  motor  memories,  traces,  or  impulses.  Every  movement 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  pp.  487,  488. 

2  Royce,  op.  cit.,  p.  369. 


VOLITION   AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        709 

of  the  body,  voluntary  or  non-voluntary,  bequeaths  some  of 
these  effects  which  are  drawn  upon  in  subsequent  volitional 
activities.  Consequently  it  becomes  important  to  indicate 
specifically  at  least  the  main  classes  of  fundamental  muscular 
activities  out  of  which  the  more  complex  stages  of  volition 
develop. 

(i)  From  our  discussion  of  self-activity  we  have  seen  that 
every  organism  tends  to  produce  some  movement  merely  through 
the  processes  of  growth,  those  which  are  simply  the  result  of  an 
overflow  of  nervous  energy.  These  movements  are  random 
and  indefinite.  These  spontaneous  movements  are  a  direct 
function  of  nutrition.  Warner  says  that  "movement  is  the  most 
obvious  outcome  of  nutrition  in  a  subject.  A  young  infant  is 
full  of  movement  while  awake  if  nutrition  is  good;  its  arms  and 
fingers  are  moved  apparently  spontaneously."  :  (2)  Through 
the  various  reflexes  set  up  by  external  stimuli  the  babe  performs 
many  random  movements.  (3)  Through  instinctive  movement 
produced  by  hunger  much  aimless  moving  about  is  carried  on. 
(4)  Through  other  instincts  many  active  processes  are  set  up, 
such  as  sucking  movements,  biting,  grasping,  winking,  crying, 
smiling,  babbling,  creeping,  etc.  (5)  Through  being  carried 
about,  being  fed,  washed,  dressed,  etc.,  thousands  of  positions 
are  assumed;  e.  g.,  gravity  causes  the  hands  and  feet  to  fall  if 
unsupported.  Thus  many  movements,  accidental  so  far  as  the 
child  is  concerned,  are  experienced.  (6)  In  attempting  to  per- 
form some  definite  voluntary  act  we  non- voluntarily,  i.  e.,  unin- 
tentionally execute  a  multitude  of  other  movements. 

All  of  the  foregoing  and  many  others  tend  to  form  impulses 
toward  reaction  on  receiving  new  stimuli.  Thus  vast  numbers 
of  will-less  movements  are  executed  and  become  a  basis  for  the 
complex  purposive  intentional  and  controlled  activities.  The 
learning  of  any  new  movement,  especially  by  the  lower  animals 
and  by  children,  becomes  a  process  of  trial  and  error,  a  process 
of  selection  of  appropriate  movements  from  among  the  hetero- 
geneous mass  of  remembered  movements.  Some  writers  go  so 

1  Warner,  Physical  Expression,  p.  59.     See  the  chart  showing  tracings,  p.  245 


710  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

far  as  to  say  that  normally  all  motor  education  and  adjustment 
is  a  process  of  selection  of  suitable  movements  from  among  an 
excess  of  movements  inherited  by  the  child.  There  is  thus  a 
survival  of  the  fittest  in  motor  ideas. 

Initial  Stages  of  Volition. — The  newborn  babe  has  no  will  of 
a  very  high  type.  No  movements  or  actions  are  consciously  and 
deliberately  attempted.  However,  through  heredity  and  indi- 
vidual muscular  development  a  large  degree  of  muscular  control 
has  been  attained.  The  child  has  power  to  move  its  limbs  in  a 
strong  and  vigorous  way.  This  power  is  hereditary  and  not 
dependent  upon  the  reflexes  incident  to  growth  and  environment. 
Those  due  to  early  experience  soon  reinforce  the  instinctive 
ones.  Many  of  the  truly  instinctive  movements  are  under  firm 
control.  For  example,  though  instinct  prompts  the  sucking 
movements  they  are  by  no  means  automatic  or  reflex  but  well 
under  control.  If  the  child  feels  a  bit  of  bare  skin,  as  on  the 
arm,  its  head  begins  to  turn  and  its  mouth  to  try  to  grasp. 
Instinct  prompts  to  the  action,  but  the  control  is  volitional — 
elementary  to  be  sure  when  compared  with  the  will  that  builds 
railroads  and  moves  armies,  but  volitional  nevertheless.  One 
child  at  birth  kicked  so  and  threw  his  arms  about  that  a  blanket 
was  with  difficulty  kept  about  him.  Newborn  children  can 
writhe  about  and  twist  their  bodies,  turn  the  head,  and  even 
raise  the  head  considerably  when  laid  on  their  faces.  Again 
they  have  such  power  in  their  arms  and  hands  that  a  pencil  or  a 
finger  is  at  once  grasped.  On  good  authority  we  also  know  that 
many  children  can  support  their  entire  weight  for  some  time 
if  suspended  from  a  stick  which  they  have  been  given  to  grasp. 
This  instinctive  power  soon  fades  away.  While  crying  is  at 
first  entirely  instinctive  and  reflex,  the  child  with  great  precocity 
soon  learns  to  control  the  voice  for  his  own  advantage.  Facial 
expression,  bodily  movement,  grasping,  examining,  locomotion, 
etc.,  all  appear  rapidly  in  the  child's  development.  Even  some 
control  of  attention  appears  remarkably  early. 

The  Development  of  Voluntary  Motor  Ability. — The  develop- 
ment of  the  will  in  the  child  is  interesting  to  trace.  Instead  of 


VOLITION  AND  MORAL  EDUCATION        711 

being  a  fixed  quantity  manifested  on  all  occasions  it  grows  grad- 
ually with  the  growth  of  the  body,  with  the  growth  of  the  intel- 
lect and  of  the  feelings.  Hancock  made  a  comparative  study  of 
the  motor  ability  of  children  of  various  ages  and  of  adults.  He 
tested  their  powers  of  steadiness  in  standing,  and  in  executing 
various  movements  such  as  threading  needles  and  tying  the  two 
ends  of  a  rope  together.  He  tells  us  that  in  the  tests  for  co- 
ordination of  movements  children  experienced  great  difficulty 
in  executing  the  finer  ones.  Fifty-six  boys,  ranging  from  five 
to  seven  years,  were  given  extra  large  needles  to  thread.  Fifty 
succeeded,  but  only  after  two  or  three  efforts.  It  often  made 
them  nervous  to  try.  Twenty-two  children  out  of  sixty-three 
were  unable  to  tie  the  ends  of  a  two-foot  string  together.  All  who 
succeeded  did  it  in  the  most  simple  way  possible,  viz.,  by  placing 
the  ends  side  by  side.  Children  find  it  difficult  to  beat  time 
because  of  lack  of  power  of  co-ordination. 

Mr.  G.  E.  Johnson  made  many  tests  of  motor  ability  among 
idiots,  and  he  found  them  very  deficient  in  voluntary  control, 
especially  of  the  accessory  muscles.  Their  movements  are 
usually  of  a  low  order.  He  says:  " No  one  who  has  ever  seen  a 
company  of  low-grade  feeble-minded  persons  will  ever  forget 
the  strange  anomalies  in  their  movements.  The  rolling  head, 
the  convulsive  shiver,  the  contorted  features,  the  strange  postures 
of  hand  and  body,  the  puzzling  gesticulations,  the  rocking  gait, 
leave  an  indelible  impression  even  among  all  the  other  curious 
and  at  first  deeply  repulsive  features  presented  by  this  unfortu- 
nate class."  *  "In  some  of  the  lowest  cases  there  is  found  the 
most  incessant  motion.  Many  of  these  movements  involve  only 
the  fundamental  muscles  of  the  trunk."  He  says  that  many  sit 
and  constantly  rock  back  and  forth.  They  often  sit  with  their 
legs  folded  up  under  them. 

In  order  to  test  the  relation  between  voluntary  motor  control 
of  the  fundamental  and  the  accessory  muscles  Mr.  Johnson  had 
them  rotate  the  arm  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  also  open  and 
shut  the  fingers  as  rapidly  as  possible.  He  also  tested  normal 

1  "Feeble-Minded  Children,"  Fed.  Sem.,  3  :  274. 


712 


PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 


children  in  the  same  way  for  purposes  of  comparison.  Some 
of  his  results  are  appended.  The  figures  indicate  the  number 
of  rotations  of  the  shoulder  which  were  made  in  ten  seconds  and 
the  number  of  times  the  fingers  were  opened  in  the  same  length 
of  time: * 


AV.   ACE 

SHOULDER 

FINGERS 

RATIO 

8  feeble-minded  boys 

13.6  yrs. 

21.  60 

17.62 

100  :  81 

8      "          "         girls 

16.1    " 

21.25 

20.25 

100  :  0.3.2 

13  normal              boys 

13.6    " 

26.85 

25-IS 

100  :  93.6 

12       "                  men 

25.40 

32.70 

100  :  128 

5        "                  women 

22.6O 

32 

100  :  141 

Johnson  remarks  that  among  the  idiots  there  was  almost  no 
power  of  opening  and  shutting  the  fingers  laterally.  In  attempt- 
ing these  movements  oftentimes  some  more  fundamental  move- 
ments were  first  made.  We  know  also  that  the  associations  of 
the  feeble-minded  are  of  a  very  low  order  and  made  very  slowly. 
Associations  which  are  made  easily  and  quickly  by  normal 
children  may  be  wholly  beyond  the  power  of  the  defective. 
Sense-perception  and  a  low  order  of  memory  may  be  fairly 
developed,  but  higher  associations  are  almost  wholly  lacking. 
Mr.  Johnson  tells  us  that  frequently  "The  child  who  hears  well, 
who  sees  well,  who  has  good  general  sensibility  and  fair  memory, 
as  many  of  these  children  have,  may  show  as  his  main  defect  ina- 
bility to  form  associations."  2  Very  simple  games  are  required 
for  "The  co-ordination  of  muscular  movements,  the  quickness  of 
thought,  the  idealization  necessary  in  many  games  of  children, 
are  far  beyond  a  feeble-minded  child." 

"In  the  willed  movements,  the  difference  between  the  control 
of  the  fundamental  and  of  the  accessory  muscles  was  much  more 
marked  in  the  feeble-minded  than  in  normal  children.  This 
was  the  more  noticeable  the  greater  the  degree  of  idiocy.  Some 
who  could  execute  gross  movements  with  regularity  and  control 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  281.  2  Op,  cit.,  p.  284. 


VOLITION  AND  MORAL   EDUCATION        713 

were  wholly  deficient  in  the  execution  of  finer  movements.  Even 
those  who  walked  strongly  were  utterly  devoid  of  the  grace  which 
results  from  a  well-developed  sense  of  muscular  co-ordination 
and  control.  Nothing  is  more  striking  than  the  clumsy  awk- 
wardness of  idiots.  Sometimes  where  the  control  of  the  funda- 
mental had  been  nearly  perfected,  there  seemed  a  positive  gap, 
as  if  the  accessory  had  not  developed."  l 

What  Is  a  Strong  Will  ? — According  to  the  popular  notion  that 
person  has  a  strong  will  who  is  full  of  strong,  uncontrolled  im- 
pulses, who  exhibits  great  vigor  in  doing  things  in  the  face  of 
opposition,  or  who  is  able  to  resist  great  temptations.  Our 
examination  of  the  development  of  voluntary  movements  and 
the  relation  between  volition  and  habit  will  not  bear  out  the 
popular  notion.  The  subject  is  so  difficult,  however,  that  a 
little  closer  examination  is  necessary  for  full  understanding.  A 
voluntary  action  is  one  that  is  under  control.  It  is  one  which  has 
been  brought  under  control  by  the  individual  or  it  may  be  in 
part  due  to  hereditary  tendencies.  Yet  we  say  of  the  man  who 
experienced  a  great  temptation  to  go  into  the  saloon,  who  had  a 
tremendous  struggle  with  himself  against  going,  but  who  finally 
mastered  his  inclination,  that  he  had  a  strong  will.  Another 
man  goes  by  the  saloon  door  with  no  temptation,  no  inclination 
to  go  in,  and  without  any  struggle.  We  give  him  no  credit  for 
strength  of  will.  We  demand  that  there  be  struggle  in  order 
to  ascribe  anything  to  strength  of  will.  The  man  who  goes 
about  with  no  temptation  to  pick  people's  pockets,  no  craving 
for  murder,  no  longing  to  set  a  match  under  his  neighbor's 
house,  no  struggle  against  evil  is  not  thought  of  as  strong-willed. 
But  let  a  man  struggle  with  debasing  impulses,  coming  out 
victorious,  and  we  cite  him  as  a  man  of  will.  Now,  this  is  incor- 
rect. We  may  laud  the  man  who  has  struggled  and  won  as  a 
means  of  encouragement  to  future  righteousness,  but  it  is  wrong 
to  regard  him  as  an  exemplar  of  sturdy  will.  A  strong  will  in 
the  psychological  sense  means  a  trained  will;  it  means  a  high  de- 
gree of  control :  while  the  very  fact  that  a  struggle  with  temptation 

lOp.  cit.,  p.  281. 


714 

has  ensued  indicates  difficulty  of  control  or  lack  of  will.  The 
temptation  and  the  struggle  are  indications  of  disease  of  will 
or  lack  of  perfect  volitional  development.  The  power  to  go  by 
the  saloon,  to  keep  one's  hands  out  of  people's  pockets,  to  in- 
hibit thoughts  of  revenge  and  injury  to  others  is  a  token  of  a 
high  degree  of  will  training.  These  virtues  do  not  come  merely 
through  individual  training,  but  they  indicate  hereditary  tenden- 
cies accumulated  through  generations  of  training  in  temperate 
living,  abstinence  from  excesses,  self-renunciation,  altruism,  etc. 
Hence,  the  person  with  desirable  hereditary  endowment  and 
properly  developed  individual  habits  does  not  feel  temptation 
toward  intemperate  sense  gratification,  taking  what  does  not 
belong  to  him,  or  destruction  of  another's  property. 

Most  people  would  grant  that  I  am  voluntarily  writing  these 
words,  but  how  many  there  are  who  would  not  admit  that  such 
action  exhibits  considerable  will  power.  Should  I  walk  across  the 
floor  or  open  my  mouth  and  speak  several  sentences  correctly 
few  would  deny  that  it  was  voluntarily  done,  but  how  many 
would  fail  to  acknowledge  that  it  was  an  exhibition  of  strength  of 
will.  Because  of  the  looseness  of  popular  psychological  analysis 
and  the  inaccuracies  in  the  use  of  language  the  word  willingly 
has  not  been  generally  thought  to  express  an  attitude  of  will. 
But  in  reality  one  who  is  willing  in  doing  a  thing  wills  to  do  it. 
Should  I  be  stricken  with  palsy  and  then  tremblingly  write  a 
page,  or  stammer  out  a  few  incoherent  sentences,  or  walk  with 
tottering  steps  across  the  floor,  but  exhibit  struggle  and  per- 
sistence, the  same  ones  who  conceded  nothing  to  my  will  before, 
would  now  marvel  at  my  strength  of  will.  As  I  regard  the  case, 
the  palsied  nerves,  the  exhausting  struggle,  and  the  indifferent 
execution  are  all  signs  of  diseased  and  therefore  weak  will. 
The  perfect  control  without  struggle,  and  accurate  execution 
are  evidences  of  strength  of  will  in  that  direction.  Whatever 
is  voluntarily  done  and  with  ease  and  accuracy  is  a  manifesta- 
tion of  a  strong  will. 

Individual  Variations  in  Volition. — It  will  readily  be  noted 
that  there  are  a  great  many  varieties  of  volitional  response 


VOLITION   AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        715 

manifested  by  different  individuals.  There  is  the  person  who 
is  cool,  calm,  calculating,  and  deliberate  in  everything  he  does; 
as  his  opposite  there  is  the  one  who  always  acts  on  momentary 
impulses,  never  foreseeing  completely  the  results  of  his  action. 
Among  the  former  type,  represented  admirably  by  Gladstone, 
are  the  great  constructive  statesmen;  in  the  latter  class  we  find 
many  great  reformers  and  soldiers — such  men  as  Luther  and 
Napoleon  (the  world-shaking  type,  as  James  denominates  them). 
Then  there  is  the  vacillating  type,  thoroughly  deliberating  and 
weighing,  but  never  arriving  at  a  decision.  Such  a  one  is  al- 
ways "going  to  do"  something,  but  never  getting  started.  Ex- 
tremes of  this  type,  of  course,  are  pathological. 

It  should  also  be  noted  that  the  same  person  may  have  strength 
of  will  in  one  direction  and  not  in  another.  A  highwayman 
may  give  an  exhibition  of  the  most  perfect  control  in  a  railway 
holdup,  but  be  the  most  weak-kneed  coward  imaginable  in 
facing  a  drawing-room  full  of  company,  in  making  a  speech, 
or  standing  firm  in  a  moral  issue.  Stammering  is  a  disease  of 
the  will,  and  who  has  not  seen  otherwise  strong  men  who  have 
been  stammerers  ?  The  stammering  was  indicative  of  weakness 
in  a  single  direction.  One  may  have  perfect  physical  control, 
but  be  lacking  in  intellectual  control,  i.  e.,  he  may  be  subject 
to  mind  wandering,  lacking  in  attention,  in  control  of  memory, 
imagination,  thinking,  etc.  One  may  have  good  control  of  pre- 
dominantly intellectual  processes  but  be  without  proper  emo- 
tional balance.  He  may  be  a  slave  to  some  great  absorbing 
passions  or  may  be  subject  to  explosions  of  temper.  Similarly 
there  are  those  who  have  perfect  control  of  intellectual  and 
emotional  processes  but  who  are  sadly  lacking  in  moral  control. 
It  is  important  in  education  to  recognize  these  variations  that 
may  appear  in  the  same  individual.  If  the  moral  will  is  weak, 
for  example,  it  is  frequently  impossible  to  develop  it  through 
purely  intellectual  activities.  Logical  training  will  not  neces- 
sarily produce  honesty. 

Will  Means  Accumulated  Tendencies. — I  have  tried  through- 
out this  work  to  indicate  that  every  experience  leaves  its  inef- 


7i6  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

faceable  trace  upon  the  nervous  system  and  consequently  upon 
the  mind.  As  these  effects  of  experience  accumulate  in  certain 
directions,  impulses  and  tendencies  toward  action  are  produced 
in  those  directions.  In  this  way  the  mind  and  body  develop 
particular  attitudes  and  processes.  When  we  analyze  the  mean- 
ing of  character  we  find  that  it  implies  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  the  accumulated  tendencies  toward  action  in  particular 
directions.  A  man  who  has  habitually  acted  in  a  righteous 
direction  has  built  up  tendencies  toward  righteousness.  On 
the  other  hand,  one  who  has  sown  a  generous  supply  of  wild 
oats  in  youth  is  sure  to  reap  in  old  age  an  abundant  harvest  of 
viciousness.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  We  are  enjoined  in 
the  Scriptures  that  "whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap."  It  may  seem  somewhat  materialistic  to  call  these 
results  of  experience  character,  but  from  a  scientific  analysis  of 
the  effect  of  experience  upon  the  nervous  system  and  upon  the 
mind  we  cannot  help  but  conclude  that  character  is  a  result  of 
all  the  experiences  which  have  come  to  us.  It  is  somewhat 
annoying  to  the  one  who  has  led  an  idle,  dissolute  life  to  con- 
template that  the  record  of  all  his  life  is  constantly  in  evidence 
in  impelling  him  in  the  direction  in  which  he  has  started,  but  the 
result  is  unavoidable.  On  the  other  hand,  one  may  derive  a 
large  measure  of  comfort  and  satisfaction  from  a  knowledge  of 
the  scientific  fact  that  life-long  experience  in  the  direction  of 
right  will  produce  a  fund  of  capital  upon  which  we  are  continu- 
ally to  draw.  A  man  who  has  thus  lived  properly  all  his  life 
will  be  able  to  stand  firm  easily  when  the  storm  of  temptation 
rages  round  him. 

Relation  to  "Free-Will." — Viewed  from  this  stand-point,  we 
may  be  accused  of  refuting  the  doctrine  of  free-will,  which  we 
are  really  espousing.  This  doctrine,  however,  as  often  stated, 
is  a  mere  quibble  of  words,  and  many  of  those  who  think  they 
believe  in  the  doctrine  of  free-will  do  not  have  an  adequate 
comprehension  of  its  consequences.  Ordinarily  the  uncritical 
individual  regards  himself  as  a  free  being  who  may  do  whatever 
comes  into  his  mind.  He  says,  "  I  am  free  to  do  what  I  please." 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        717 

Should  we  analyze  the  case  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  concep- 
tion of  will  and  its  development  we  should  probably  see  that 
no  individual  is  absolutely  free  to  do  what  he  may  happen  to 
think.  In  a  way  he  may  perhaps  do  what  he  pleases,  but  he  is 
not  free  to  be  pleased  to  do  whatever  he  may  think  or  whatever 
may  be  suggested  to  him.  He  who  has  lived  a  life  of  righteous- 
ness is  not  free  to  be  pleased  with  doing  vicious  things.  More- 
over, to  a  large  extent,  such  a  man  is  never  free  to  do  those 
things  which  are  evil.  During  his  whole  life  he  has  been  forming 
habits  in  a  different  direction  and  these  developed  tendencies 
bind  him  almost  surely  to  perform  actions  which  are  in  harmony 
with  them.  We  are  continually  chained  to  a  certain  extent  to 
a  routine  life  because  of  the  force  of  habits  which  have  become 
ingrained  in  us.  Not  only  are  our  physical  habits  binding,  but 
all  our  mental  habits  are  equally  enslaving.  It  is  exceedingly 
difficult,  as  every  one  knows,  for  us  to  initiate  entirely  new  and 
unfamiliar  lines  of  activity.  We  are  not  free  to  think  as  we 
please,  but  we  are  bound  to  think  along  the  lines  of  our  previous 
thinking.  In  the  words  of  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall:  "We  will 
with  all  that  we  have  willed."  Furthermore,  every  time  that  we 
think,  we  will. 

I  have  frequently  said  to  students:  "You  may  think  you  are 
free  to  do  anything  that  you  know  of  or  understand  and  which 
is  not  beyond  your  ordinary  powers  of  execution,  but  an  illus- 
tration will  easily  convince  you  that  such  is  not  the  case.  For 
example,  when  you  go  to  church  on  Sunday  you  would  not  be 
able  in  the  middle  of  the  sermon  to  stand  up  and  whistle  or 
swear  or  give  the  university  yell.  Now,  physically,  it  is  per- 
fectly possible  for  you  to  do  those  things,  and  under  other  con- 
ditions you  would  be  able  to  execute  them;  but  under  the  condi- 
tions imposed  you  would  be  absolutely  bound  down  to  another 
course.  All  your  ideas  and  habits  and  mental  traditions  are 
against  any  such  extraordinary  conduct,  and  hence  while  in 
church  you  must  act  according  to  your  habitual  ways  of  think- 
ing and  according  to  the  traditions  of  the  house  of  worship 
which  fill  and  take  possession  of  your  subconsciousness.  No 


718  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

matter  how  great  a  sum  one  would  promise  to  you  if  you  would 
do  those  extraordinary  things  you  would  be  utterly  unable  to 
do  them.  In  other  words,  you  are  free  only  in  the  direction 
in  which  your  past  life  allows  you  to  act.  You  are  absolutely 
prohibited  from  doing  those  and  thousands  of  other  things." 
Again,  as  an  illustration  of  the  same  point,  I  say  to  them:  "I 
had  an  appointment  to  speak  before  you  to-day  at  ten  o'clock. 
The  weather  was  cold  and  stormy  and  everything  exceedingly 
disagreeable  and  uninviting  outside.  It  would  have  been  a 
great  pleasure  for  me  to  remain  by  my  own  fireside  and  bask  in 
the  warmth  of  the  furnace  heat,  but  throughout  my  whole  life 
I  have  been  accustomed  to  meeting  all  my  appointments  and  on 
this  occasion  I  should  be  utterly  unable  to  remain  contentedly 
by  my  fireside  and  break  my  engagement."  In  a  sense  I  was 
not  free  to  act  according  to  my  momentary  inclination.  I  was 
impelled  to  act  in  the  direction  which  the  habits  of  my  whole  life 
have  determined  for  me. 

During  my  whole  career  I  have  tried  to  lead  an  upright  life 
and  I  contend  that  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  for  me  to  raise 
my  hand  against  my  neighbor  in  the  act  of  murder.  I  am 
pleased  to  think  that  my  whole  previous  career  would  act  as  a 
source  of  inhibition  of  any  such  procedure.  But  the  criminal 
who  has  long  schooled  himself  in  vice  would  not  feel  this  re- 
straining influence.  Gradually  he  has  developed  impulses  and 
tendencies  which  would  lead  him  in  the  direction  of  crime,  and 
now  upon  the  slightest  provocation  those  impulses  develop  into 
corresponding  actions.  Hence  we  see  from  the  pedagogical 
point  of  view  how  important  it  is  to  fortify  the  child  against 
that  which  is  undesirable  in  conduct  by  developing  in  him 
worthy  impulses  and  tendencies  through  experience  in  right 
conduct.  Right  conduct  in  childhood  there  must  be  if  we  expect 
right  conduct  in  adult  years,  and  the  only  freedom  which  the 
man  can  ever  have  to  do  those  things  which  are  righteous  and 
just  is  that  freedom  which  is  developed  through  life-long  habits 
of  righteous  conduct.  Otherwise  all  one's  previous  life  in  the 
opposite  direction  is  ever  present  tending  to  drag  one  down. 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        719 

In  support  of  this  point  of  view  I  append  some  words  from 
Professor  Fuller  ton  who  has  made  one  of  the  clearest  and  most 
rational  expositions  of  the  doctrine  of  free  will  ever  set  forth. 
He  writes  as  follows:1 

"For  forty  years  I  have  lived  quietly  and  in  obedience  to 
law.  I  am  regarded  as  a  decent  citizen,  and  one  who  can  be 
counted  upon  not  to  rob  his  neighbor,  or  wave  the  red  flag  of 
the  anarchist.  I  have  grown  gradually  to  be  a  character  of 
such  and  such  a  kind;  I  am  fairly  familiar  with  my  impulses 
and  aspirations;  I  hope  to  carry  out  plans  extending  over  a 
good  many  years  in  the  future.  Is  it  this  /  with  whom  I  have 
lived  in  the  past,  and  whom  I  think  I  know,  that  will  elect  for 
me  whether  I  shall  carry  out  plans  or  break  them,  be  consistent 
or  inconsistent,  love  or  hate,  be  virtuous  or  betake  myself  to 
crime?  Alas!  I  am  'free,'  and  this  7  with  whom  I  am  familiar 
cannot  condition  the  future.  But  I  will  make  the  most  serious 
of  resolves,  bind  myself  with  the  holiest  of  promises!  To  what 
end?  How  can  any  resolve  be  a  cause  of  causeless  actions,  or 
any  promise  clip  the  erratic  wing  of  '  free-will '  ?  In  so  far  as 
I  am  'free'  the  future  is  a  wall  of  darkness.  One  cannot  even 
say  with  the  Moslem:  'What  shall  be,  will  be';  for  there  is  no 
shall  about  it.  It  is  wholly  impossible  for  me  to  guess  what  I 
will  'freely'  do,  and  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  make  any  pro- 
vision against  the  consequences  of '  free '  acts  of  the  most  deplor- 
able sort.  A  knowledge  of  my  own  character  in  the  past  brings 
with  it  neither  hope  nor  consolation.  My  'freedom'  is  just  as 
'free'  as  that  of  the  man  who  was  hanged  last  week.  It  is 
not  conditioned  by  my  character.  If  he  could  'freely'  commit 
murder,  so  can  I.  But  I  never  dreamt  of  killing  a  man,  and 
would  not  do  it  for  the  world!  No;  that  is  true;  the  /  that  I 
know  rebels  against  the  thought.  Yet  to  admit  that  this  /  can 
prevent  it  is  to  become  a  determinist.  If  I  am  'free'  I  cannot 
seek  this  city  of  refuge.  Is  'freedom'  a  thing  that  can  be  in- 
herited as  a  bodily  or  mental  constitution  ?  Can  it  be  repressed 
by  a  course  of  education,  or  laid  in  chains  by  life-long  habit? 

i  «  pYCCf]om  ,-ind  '  Free-Will,'  "  Popular  Science  Monthly,  58  :  189,  191. 


720  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

In  so  jar  as  any  action  is  'free,'  what  I  have  been,  what  I  am, 
what  I  have  always  done  or  striven  to  do,  what  I  most  earnestly 
wish  or  resolve  to  do  at  the  present  moment — these  things  can 
have  no  more  to  do  with  its  future  realization  than  if  they  had 
no  existence.  If,  then,  I  really  am  'free,'  I  must  face  the  pos- 
sibility that  I  may  at  any  moment  do  anything  that  any  man 
can  'freely'  do.  The  possibility  is  a  hideous  one;  and  surely 
even  the  most  ardent  'free-willist'  will,  when  he  contemplates 
it  frankly,  excuse  me  for  hoping  that,  if  I  am  'free,'  I  am  at 
least  not  very  '  free,'  and  that  I  may  reasonably  expect  to  find 
some  degree  of  consistency  in  my  life  and  actions.  An  excess 
of  such  'freedom'  is  indistinguishable  from  the  most  abject 
slavery  to  lawless  caprice.  .  .  . 

"It  is  a  melancholy  world,  this  world  of  'freedom.'  In  it 
no  man  can  count  upon  himself  and  no  man  can  persuade  his 
neighbor.  We  are,  it  is  true,  powerless  to  lead  one  another 
into  evil;  but  we  are  also  powerless  to  influence  one  another 
for  good.  It  is  a  lonely  world,  in  which  each  man  is  cut  off 
from  the  great  whole  and  given  a  lawless  little  world  all  to  him- 
self. And  it  is  an  uncertain  world,  a  world  in  which  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  past  casts  no  ray  into  the  darkness  of  the  future. 
To-morrow  I  am  to  face  nearly  a  hundred  students  in  logic. 
It  is  a  new  class,  and  I  know  little  about  its  members  save  that 
they  are  students.  I  have  assumed  that  they  will  act  as  stu- 
dents usually  act,  and  that  I  shall  escape  with  my  life.  But 
if  they  are  endowed  with  'free-will,'  what  may  I  not  expect? 
What  does  'free-will'  care  for  the  terrors  of  the  Dean's  office, 
the  long  green  table,  and  the  Committee  of  Discipline?  Is  it 
interested  in  Logic?  Or  does  it  have  a  personal  respect  for 
me?  The  picture  is  a  harrowing  one,  and  I  drop  the  curtain 
upon  it." 

Professor  Paulsen  shows  that  freedom  of  will  is  not  an  original 
endowment  of  human  nature,  but  an  acquired  characteristic. 
One  cannot  necessarily  accomplish  every  individual  thing  which 
one  may  wish,  but  by  persistent  effort  one  can  determine  the 
whole  course  of  his  life  in  consonance  with  an  ideal  standard 


VOLITION  AND  MORAL  EDUCATION        721 

chosen.  He  says  that  freedom  "has  been  acquired  by  the 
entire  race  in  the  course  of  history,  and  must  be  acquired  anew 
by  each  individual.  The  new-born  child  does  not  bring  with 
it  a  ready-made  freedom;  nay,  it  is  driven  like  an  animal  by 
momentary  cravings.  But  gradually  the  rational  will,  sup- 
ported by  education,  rises  above  the  animal  impulses.  This 
occurs  in  a  different  degree  in  different  individuals;  some  are 
wholly  controlled  by  these  impulses  during  their  entire  lives, 
others  acquire  such  a  remarkable  control  over  nature  in  them- 
selves that  they  seem  to  regulate  even  the  smallest  details  of 
their  lives  by  rational  deliberation,  and  never  do  anything  or 
leave  anything  undone,  except  by  choice.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
in  this  connection,  that  though  it  is  vulgar  and  base  to  give 
the  impulses  complete  mastery  over  one's  self  (a/coXao-ta),  yet 
the  complete  suppression  of  them  fills  us  with  fear  and  awe; 
no  one,  as  has  been  said,  is  lovable  without  his  weaknesses. 
Man  seems  to  be  intended  as  a  mean  between  an  animal  and 
a  purely  rational  being. 

"Hence,  can  man  determine  himself  by  his  own  will?  Can 
he  fashion  his  will  by  means  of  his  will?  Yes  and  no.  Yes, 
for  he  undoubtedly  has  the  faculty  of  educating  himself;  he 
can  fashion  his  outer  and  inner  man,  with  conscious  purpose, 
according  to  his  ideal;  he  can  discipline  his  natural  impulses, 
nay,  even  suppress  them  so  that  they  will  no  longer  move  him. 
To  be  sure,  he  cannot  do  this  simply  by  wishing  or  resolving  it; 
he  can  do  it  only  by  constant  practice  and  by  employing  appro- 
priate means,  in  the  same  way  that  he  acquires  bodily  skill. 
We  cannot  when  awake  immediately  force  ourselves  to  sleep, 
by  an  act  of  the  will;  but  we  can,  by  proper  diet  and  work, 
exercise  such  an  influence  upon  the  body  that  sleep  will  come 
in  time  of  its  own  accord.  It  is  said  that  Demosthenes's  pro- 
nunciation was  naturally  indistinct  and  defective;  the  will 
to  be  an  orator  was  not  able,  per  se,  to  coerce  the  organs  of 
speech,  but  it  was  able  to  prescribe  to  nature  long  and  arduous 
tasks  and  to  make  these  serve  the  desired  end.  Inner  nature 
is  susceptible  of  being  influenced  in  the  same  way.  A  man 


722  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

knows  that  he  has  a  dangerous  tendency  to  anger.  He  decides 
to  overcome  it.  His  prudence  and  his  good  resolutions  alone 
cannot,  of  course,  by  their  mere  presence,  repress  the  violent 
fit  of  temper  the  very  first  time  it  breaks  out  again.  But  they 
can  take  the  proper  precautions  necessary  to  subdue  it  gradu- 
ally. They  determine  him  to  avoid  temptation;  every  organ, 
however,  that  is  not  exercised  decays.  His  mind  is  filled  with 
examples  of  the  injurious  effects  of  anger  as  well  as  with  exam- 
ples of  self-control;  he  even  makes  use  of  trivial  aids;  we  ac- 
custom ourselves  to  say  a  prayer  or  to  recite  a  few  verses  when 
we  are  seized  with  anger.  Hence,  a  man  can  unquestionably 
transform  his  nature  by  his  will.  He  may  by  inhibiting  certain 
impulses  destroy  them,  and  develop  and  strengthen  weak  im- 
pulses by  habit.  '  Habit,'  says  the  proverb,  '  is  second  nature.' "  i 
Educational  Significance. — This  conception  of  the  will,  which 
is  just  beginning  to  be  recognized,  is  of  great  importance  peda- 
gogically.  Under  the  old  way  of  conceiving  the  will  as  an 
entity  of  predetermined  character,  it  was  certainly  useless  to 
try  to  cultivate  it,  though,  paradoxically,  the  same  writers 
who  promulgated  the  older  theories  of  will  and  freedom  of  the 
will  discoursed  upon  the  great  possibilities  of  will  development. 
According  to  the  view  that  will  always  implies  conscious  choice 
and  deliberation  there  could  be  no  training  in  volitional  activities 
until  there  had  been  developed  a  high  degree  of  intellectual  and 
affective  life.  There  could  be  little,  if  any,  manifestation  of 
will  in  animals,  and  none  in  children  until  some  months  old. 
There  could  certainly  be  no  use  trying  to  train  the  will  of  a 
small  babe,  for  children  are  many  months  old  before  they 
deliberately  choose  and  execute.  The  same  criticism  applies 
here  as  upon  all  of  that  psychology  in  which  every  psychosis 
was  viewed  from  the  stand-point  of  adult  consciousness.  The 
more  recent  psychology  considers  everything  genetically  and 
finds  a  rich  heritage  in  the  hereditary  accumulations  and  in  the 
subconscious  life  of  both  babyhood  and  of  normal  adult  life. 
There  is  a  rich  mine  of  experience  gained  before  the  dawning 

1  Paulsen,  A  System  of  Ethics,  translated  by  Thilly,  p.  469. 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        723 

of  consciousness  which  must  be  explored  and  which  makes  up 
a  worthy  portion  of  all  our  tendencies.  We  have  learned 
through  the  study  of  memory  and  instinct  that  every  impression 
leaves  its  ineffaceable  trace.  Thus  every  infantile  kick  and 
howl  and  tumble  become  significant  for  the  larger  development 
of  voluntary  life.  We  have  seen  that  we  will  with  all  that  we 
have  willed.  To  will  in  absolutely  novel  directions  is  as  im- 
possible as  lifting  one's  self  by  the  boot  straps.  The  execution 
of  every  movement  becomes  significant.  Hence  it  becomes  im- 
portant to  regulate  this  congeries  of  random  movements  produc- 
ing orderly  paths  of  execution.  Thus  when  we  train  the  child  to 
eat  regularly,  to  sleep  at  definite  times  and  quietly,  when  we 
promote  digestion,  when  we  care  for  its  physical  health  and  keep 
its  motor  apparatus  in  working  order,  we  are  helping  him  to 
lay  the  desirable  foundations  of  his  voluntary  life. 

Directions  of  Control. — Among  the  manifold  directions  of 
controlled  actions  only  a  few  may  be  discussed,  and  these 
merely  in  a  suggestive,  rather  than  an  exhaustive,  manner. 
First  and  fundamentally  every  child  must  acquire  muscular 
control  of  a  great  variety  of  actions  and  in  some  cases  of  ex- 
ceeding complexity.  What  are  creeping,  walking,  standing, 
running,  feeding  one's  self,  going  through  the  process  of  dress- 
ing, etc.,  but  cases  of  voluntary  control  ?  True  they  come  to 
seem  automatic,  but  they  are  directly  subject  to  modification 
and  control  and  therefore  volitional.  To  stand  well,  possess 
an  erect  carriage,  walk  gracefully,  manage  one's  hands  and 
feet  without  awkwardness,  etc.,  are  no  mean  accomplishments. 
They  often  secure  for  one  an  entree  to  the  best  society  and  even 
acid  to  one's  monthly  salary.  To  give  assurance  of  possessing 
these  qualities  is  a  prime  endorsement  to  a  candidate  for  many 
positions.  They  must  be  learned,  too,  contrary  to  current 
opinion.  They  are  a  badge  of  good  society,  and  indicate  that 
the  possessor  of  these  habits  has  been  under  approved  tutors, 
unconsciously  observed  it  may  be,  but  none  the  less  important. 
To  manage  one's  voice  so  as  to  utter  words  distinctly,  without 
stammering  or  hesitation,  to  modulate  the  voice  properly  in 


724  PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION 

talking  and  singing,  to  be  able  to  marshal  apt  words  readily, 
to  have  the  power  of  speaking  in  different  languages;  all  these 
are  excellent  cases  of  a  high  degree  of  control.  Who  will  say 
that  they  are  not  voluntary?  Still  there  is  no  great  degree  of 
control  until  they  are  largely  habitual.  These  are  all  worthy 
directions  of  will  training.  Proficiency  in  any  of  the  several 
directions  indicates  education  of  the  highest  importance  and 
gained  only  through  much  practice.  Not  only  are  the  foregoing 
examples  of  muscular  co-ordination  and  control,  but  they  also 
illustrate  controlled,  highly  complex  psychical  activities.  Such 
activities  as  are  manifested  in  drawing,  painting,  sculpture, 
watch-making,  the  fine  touch  and  execution  in  surgery,  or 
playing  the  piano  or  violin,  are  all  splendid  illustrations  of  a 
high  degree  of  co-ordination  and  control. 

It  is  highly  important  that  children  receive  thorough  muscular 
training.  This  training  in  voluntary  motor  ability  should  be 
begun  in  infancy.  The  child  must  be  allowed  to  move  about 
freely.  We  have  by  no  means  reached  the  acme  of  perfection 
in  the  matter  of  suitable  clothing  for  babies.  At  the  outset  we 
put  them  in  dresses  long  enough  to  suit  a  ball-room  belle. 
Instead  of  being  able  to  kick  about  vigorously  they  are  ham- 
pered in  their  movements  by  the  unhygienic  clothing.  When  the 
child  becomes  old  enough  to  creep  he  is  often  prevented  by  the 
mother  who  fears  he  will  soil  a  pretty  dress.  He  is  thus  de- 
prived of  lung  development,  chest  expansion,  control  of  hands, 
arms,  and  feet,  and,  in  fact,  the  entire  body  is  deprived  of  nor- 
mal development.  One  child  studied,  who  had  been  deprived  of 
the  pleasure  and  profit  of  creeping,  was  put  into  "jumper  over- 
alls" and  allowed  to  creep.  He  gained  two  inches  in  chest 
expansion  in  eleven  days!  Besides  the  improvements  in  vital 
capacity  and  increased  chest  measurement  the  child  who  creeps 
gains  wonderfully  in  motor  control.  In  his  peregrinations  he 
reaches  for  things,  closes  his  chubby  fists  upon  them,  pulls 
himself  toward  things,  making  numberless  daily  motor  adjust- 
ments requiring  the  fine  calculation  of  conditions  and  the  co- 
ordination of  muscular  effort.  Again  when  the  child  loses  his 


VOLITION   AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        725 

provinciality  and  becomes  a  pedestrian,  fashion  steps  in  to  for- 
bid his  wearing  clothes  in  which  he  may  sample  sand  piles  and 
mud  pies,  in  which  he  may  climb  fences  and  trees,  turn  somer- 
saults or  roll  in  the  grass.  When  shall  we  learn  that  the  child 
must  have  freedom  in  order  to  develop  properly  physically, 
mentally,  and  morally? 

The  games  and  plays  of  childhood  not  only  develop  muscular 
control — the  elemental  type  of  will — but  through  them  the  child 
also  learns  to  direct  thoughts  to  definite  ends  and  to  control 
his  feelings,  both  through  subordination  and  in  proper  asser- 
tion. Plays  and  games  have  not  been  sufficiently  utilized  as 
educative  means.  Their  value  has  been  demonstrated  in 
kindergartens  and  in  schools  for  the  feeble-minded,  and  we 
should  take  a  hint  for  the  education  of  normal  children.  I  hope 
the  time  will  come  when  every  teacher  in  our  public  schools  will 
be  required  to  be  on  the  playground  during  certain  specific 
times  as  a  director  of  the  play  activities  of  the  children. 

Motor-Culture  and  Moral  Culture. — Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  in 
his  incomparable  article  on  moral  education  and  will  training, 
points  out  the  immense  role  motor  training  has  occupied  in 
will  growth.  He  believes  that  city  children  of  to-day  are  liable 
to  deteriorate  volitionally  largely  because  they  do  not  have 
opportunity  for  will-culture  through  motor-culture.  By  con- 
trast he  pictures  the  opportunities  for  such  culture  afforded  by 
conditions  of  life  a  generation  or  two  ago.  In  those  days  "most 
school-boys  had  either  farm-work,  chores,  errands,  jobs  self- 
imposed  or  required  by  less  tender  parents;  they  made  things, 
either  toys  or  tools,  out  of  school.  Most  school-girls  did  house- 
work, more  or  less  of  which  is,  like  farm-work,  perhaps  the 
most  varied  and  salutary  as  well  as  most  venerable  of  all  schools 
for  the  youthful  body  and  mind.  They  undertook  extensive 
works  of  embroidery,  bed-quilting,  knitting,  sewing,  mending, 
if  not  cleaning,  and  even  spinning  and  weaving  their  own  or 
others'  clothing,  and  cared  for  the  younger  children.  The 
wealthier  devised  or  imposed  tasks  for  will-culture,  as  the 
German  crown-prince  has  his  children  taught  a  trade  as  part 


726  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

of  their  education.  Ten  days  at  the  hoe-handle,  axe,  or  pitch- 
fork, said  an  eminent  educator  lately  in  substance,  with  no  new 
impression  from  without,  and  one  constant  and  only  duty,  is  a 
schooling  in  perseverance  and  sustained  effort,  such  as  few  boys 
now  get  in  any  shape."  l 

Children  should  be  taught  to  work.  A  child  that  has  not 
learned  to  work  has  not  mastered  the  A  B  C's  of  will-training. 
Work  differs  from  play  in  that  it  is  not  a  means  of  relaxation. 
Work  often  demands  that  activity  be  kept  up  long  after  exhil- 
aration has  ceased.  An  object  must  be  accomplished  no  matter 
what  the  inclinations  may  dictate. 

Intellectual  Control. — Although  the  foregoing  activities  in- 
volve controlled  psychical  processes,  there  are  still  higher  men- 
tal activities  which  are  not  so  closely  related  to  muscular  actions. 
What  one  thinks  about  when  not  engaged  in  set  routine  duties 
seems  at  first  sight  to  be  accidental  and  uncontrolled,  but  an 
examination  will  reveal  that  our  thoughts  lie  along  certain  quite 
well-defined  paths.  We  are  constantly  thinking  about  our  line 
of  work  or  pleasure,  and,  though  temporary  deviations  are 
made  because  of  chance  suggestions,  we  continually  revert  to 
the  habitual  line  of  thought.  It  is  precisely  because  the  ideas 
are  habitual  that  they  are  intruded  before  us.  If  we  conscien- 
tiously set  ourselves  to  reflecting  upon  a  given  topic  the  degree 
of  habituation  in  that  direction  determines  the  degree  of  readi- 
ness with  which  we  stick  to  the  purpose.  In  other  words,  the 
more  we  know  in  a  given  line,  the  more  we  have  thought  about 
it,  the  greater  the  degree  of  thought-control  we  can  manifest 
in  that  line.  If  I  am  able  to  secure  willing  attention  from  my 
class  it  is  because  the  ideas  which  I  am  trying  to  get  before  them 
are  so  closely  related  to  what  they  already  know.  If  asked  why 
they  paid  such  close  attention  they  would  say  because  they 
were  interested.  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the 
road  is  a  familiar  one,  that  their  apperception  enables  them  to 
understand  and  follow  without  apparent  effort  what  is  dis- 
cussed. Attention,  even  the  most  consciously  voluntary,  de- 

1  Pedagogical  Seminary,  2  :  73-74. 


VOLITION  AND  MORAL  EDUCATION        727 

pends  upon  points  of  relation  between  the  thing  attended  to  and 
the  experience  of  the  learner.  No  one  can  voluntarily  attend 
for  any  length  of  time  to  a  mere  spot  on  the  wall.  It  is  meaning- 
less and  without  interest.  As  soon  as  the  mind  finds  no  well- 
worn  tracks  to  follow  interest  dies  out,  attention  wavers,  and 
control  of  thoughts  is  lost.  The  highest  degree  of  volition  is 
evidenced  by  long-continued  application  to  a  single  purpose. 
The  development  of  a  great  industry  in  pursuance  of  chosen 
ideals,  the  unremitting  toil  necessitated  in  writing  books,  or 
in  patiently  conducting  experimental  researches,  the  persistence 
often  manifested  in  acquiring  a  college  education  unaided  and 
in  the  face  of  obstacles,  each  exemplifies  a  superlative  exhibition 
of  protracted  volitional  control.  The  momentary  control  of 
anger  under  provocation,  individual  acts  of  bravery  or  self- 
denial,  or  the  careful  attention  to  a  single  lesson  are  not  to  be 
compared  with  the  thoroughly  established,  consistent  conduct, 
regulated  in  a  thousand  ways  and  all  promoting  a  single  end. 
The  former  actions  represent  merely  temporary  impulse,  while 
the  last  named  represents  integrity  and  fixity  of  high  moral 
character. 

Some  people  frequently  notice  that  they  do  not  seem  to  keep 
their  attention  easily  upon  a  given  train  of  thought.  They  are 
subject  to  mind-wandering.  They  should  be  assured  that  this 
is  largely  because  they  have  never  developed  habits  of  reflecting 
long  and  continuously  about  anything.  The  habit  of  looking 
at  all  sides  of  a  subject  can  be  developed  by  persistent  practice. 
Frequently  the  mind  wanders  because  no  fund  of  knowledge 
has  been  acquired  along  the  line  of  pursuit.  Furthermore,  the 
most  willing  attention,  i.  e.,  the  most  voluntary  attention,  is  a 
direct  outgrowth  of  interest.  Genuine  interest  can  only  be 
developed  through  previous  knowledge. 

A  characteristic  of  children  is  that  they  live  in  the  present 
and  for  the  present.  Ask  a  child  which  he  would  prefer,  a 
stick  of  candy  to-day  or  ten  sticks  to-morrow,  and  he  will  inva- 
riably choose  the  one  to-day.  Likewise  the  savage  is  largely 
unmindful  of  the  future.  He  provides  for  the  present  meal  and 


728  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

then  sleeps  until  hunger  sends  him  on  the  chase  to  provide 
another.  Civilization  teaches  men  to  deal  in  futures,  to  pro- 
vide for  the  morrow,  the  rainy  day,  to  provide  a  protracted 
course  of  education  for  the  child  as  a  preparation  for  the  future. 
To  teach  the  child  to  build  for  the  future,  to  practise  virtues 
and  inhibit  vices  in  order  to  eventually  acquire  ideal  habits 
and  states,  and  to  insure  the  highest  prudential  control,  is  true 
pedagogy.  The  world's  great  thinkers  have  all  been  men  who 
have  been  able  to  give  sustained,  undivided,  and  continuous 
thought  to  whatever  occupied  their  attention. 

Emotional  Control. — To  develop  control  of  the  feelings  and 
emotions  is  an  important  direction  of  will-culture.  When  we 
consider  that  feelings  and  emotions  are  the  great  determining 
forces  in  active  life  and  that  no  progress  was  ever  made  that  did 
not  have  back  of  it  a  great  interest,  the  importance  of  the  ques- 
tion is  impressed  upon  us.  Our  attitude  toward  life  and  its 
duties  determines  what  our  active  relations  will  be.  Are  we 
happy,  cheerful,  full  of  sympathy  and  kindly  fellow-feeling; 
or  are  we  sorrowful,  depressed,  full  of  anger,  jealousy,  or  resent- 
ment? The  answer  indicates  the  direction  which  our  actions 
will  take.  Hence  we  see  the  importance  in  a  child's  education 
of  teaching  control  of  the  emotions.  In  the  early  life  of  the 
infant,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  through  childhood,  the 
feelings  are  more  dominant  than  the  intellect.  The  feelings 
are  much  more  paleopsychic  than  is  the  intellect.  The  majority 
of  all  free  activities  of  the  lower  animals  and  of  children  are  im- 
pelled by  feeling.  Hunger  and  its  satisfaction,  the  use  of  the 
muscles  in  free  play,  satisfaction  of  curiosity,  etc.,  are  pre- 
eminently matters  of  feeling.  (There  are  those  who  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  the  whole  course  of  evolution  is  determined  by 
pleasures  and  pains.) 

Practically  all  the  early  manifested  instincts  are  emotional. 
Among  these  are  fear,  anger,  jealousy,  shyness,  sociability, 
affection,  and  curiosity.  The  whole  natural  psychical  provision 
for  self-preservation  is  largely  a  matter  of  instinctive  personal 
feeling.  Rational  intellectual  processes  scarcely  enter  into 


VOLITION   AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        729 

primitive  modes  of  self-preservation.  The  newly-hatched  par- 
tridge is  terrorized  by  strange  objects,  it  knows  not  why;  the 
kitten  spits  at  a  dog  simply  because  it  possesses  an  antipathy 
against  it,  not  because  it  has  individually  concluded  that  such 
a  course  is  best. 

Dr.  Hall,  who  has  emphasized  so  strongly  the  preponderant 
place  which  the  emotions  occupy  in  primitive  life  and  in  child- 
life,  writes  that1  "Happily  for  our  craft,  the  child  and  youth 
appear  at  the  truly  psychological  moment,  freighted,  as  they 
are,  body  and  soul,  with  reminiscences  of  what  we  were  fast 
losing.  They  are  abandoned  to  joy,  grief,  passion,  fear,  and 
rage.  They  are  bashful,  show  off,  weep,  laugh,  desire,  are 
curious,  eager,  regret,  and  swell  with  passion,  not  knowing  that 
these  last  two  are  especially  outlawed  by  our  guild.  There  is 
color  in  their  souls,  brilliant,  livid,  loud.  Their  hearts  are  yet 
young,  fresh,  and  in  the  golden  age.  Despite  our  lessening 
fecundity,  our  over-schooling,  'city-fication,'  and  spoiling,  the 
affectations  we  instil  and  the  repressions  we  practise,  they  are 
still  the  light  and  hope  of  the  world  especially  to  us,  who  would 
know  more  of  the  soul  of  man  and  would  penetrate  to  its  deeper 
strata  and  study  its  origins."  He  further  says  of  the  feeling- 
instincts  that  "These  radicals  of  man's  psychic  life,  while  some 
of  them  are  decadent,  rudimentary,  and  superseded,  are  often 
important  just  in  proportion  to  the  depth  of  the  phylogenetic 
strata  into  which  they  strike  their  roots.  Hunger,  love,  pride, 
and  many  other  instinctive  feelings,  to  say  nothing  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  can  be  traced  far  down  through  the  scale  of  vertebrate 
and  to  invertebrate  life." 

The  child  must  acquire  control  of  the  various  emotions  to 
the  end  that  they  may  become  his  ally  instead  of  his  enemy. 
In  the  earliest  days  control  of  such  low  feelings  as  hunger  through 
the  habits  of  regular  eating  are  installed.  The  regulation  of  this 
feeling  is  of  life-long  importance  to  every  individual.  Undoubt- 
edly lack  of  control  caused  by  irregular  hours  of  eating,  gor- 
mandizing in  response  to  sense-feelings  and  improper  food,  have 

1  Adolescence,  II,  p.  60. 


730  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

led  in  later  years  to  intemperance  in  many  other  forms.  In- 
temperance in  eating,  drinking,  smoking,  drug-using,  etc., 
usually  result  from  pampered,  unregulated  appetites. 

The  impulse  to  anger  is  early  evinced.  While  contending 
for  the  high  moral  value  of  trained,  intelligent  anger,  as  evi- 
denced by  voting  against  chicanery  and  evil,  yet  we  should 
teach  that  childish  passion  must  be  curbed.  The  infant  straight- 
ens out,  becomes  tense,  clutches  its  fists,  screams,  and  abandons 
itself  wholly  to  the  feelings,  partly  of  satisfaction,  partly  of 
anger  or  fear.  Not  only  are  no  habits  of  self-control  thus  ini- 
tiated, but  positive  habits  of  giving  way  to  anger  are  developed. 
The  man  who  gives  way  to  anger,  becomes  dominated  by  animal 
manifestations,  is  always  at  a  disadvantage  with  an  adversary 
who  keeps  his  head,  who  uses  anger  only  to  stimulate  righteous 
action.  Two  general  conditions  must  be  observed  in  develop- 
ing control  of  anger;  first  the  child  must  be  removed  as  far  as 
possible  from  irritating  causes;  second,  correlatively,  he  must 
be  kept  as  good-tempered  as  possible.  One  attempt  at  forming 
habits  of  good-nature  is  worth  ten  efforts  at  reforming  habits 
of  ill-nature.  Good  health,  proper  hygiene,  and  sunny-tempered 
parents,  teachers,  and  companions  go  far  toward  insuring  even- 
tempered  children;  while  a  child  who  is  forced  to  live  with 
crotchety,  moody,  and  cranky  parents  and  associates,  easily 
becomes  inoculated  with  touchiness,  irritability,  and  flightiness. 

Because  of  the  effect  of  assuming  the  outward  expression  of 
emotions  in  producing  or  increasing  the  emotion,  it  is  highly 
valuable  to  the  child  to  refrain  from  outbursts  of  temper,  from 
giving  way  to  foolish  fears,  or  even  to  silly,  causeless  giggling. 
The  conscious  attempt  to  preserve  a  proper  demeanor  has  a 
salutary  effect  in  producing  habits  of  emotional  control.  The 
hysterical,  flighty  woman,  ready  to  go  into  spasms  on  hearing 
of  a  worm,  a  bug,  or  a  fire;  who  throws  a  whole  company 
into  a  panic  in  a  time  of  excitement,  is  the  one  who  was  never 
taught  to  exercise  proper  self-restraint  as  a  child.  The  cool, 
"heady"  individual  who  averts  panics,  calms  the  crowd  at  a 
fire,  or  goes  tranquilly  into  battle  is  the  one  who  has  schooled 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        731 

himself  from  childhood  against  such  impulsive  outbursts  of 
emotion.  The  freedom  of  the  moment  has  been  bought  by 
life-long  discipline. 

Supreme  wisdom  is  needed  for  developing  well-regulated, 
healthful  sex  feelings.  They  are  among  the  most  deep-seated 
and  far-reaching.  Through  the  maintenance  of  perfect  health, 
the  restriction  of  food  and  appetites,  proper  exercise,  healthy 
interests  which  monopolize  the  mental  life,  by  giving  plenty  of 
physical  work  and  wise  companionship,  sex  feelings  should 
become  irradiated  into  the  higher  emotions  connected  with 
home-building,  social  interests,  and  altruism  in  general.  Just 
how  to  secure  this  ideal  is  not  easy  to  prescribe.  It  is  worthy 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  sages.  Thus  far  the  primer  of  the  subject 
has  not  been  formulated. 

Drudgery  and  Moral  Development. — James  has  said  that  to 
train  the  will  we  should  do  something  frequently  that  is  disa- 
greeable, something  for  no  other  reason  than  that  we  would 
rather  not  do  it.  It  is  true  that  one  should  learn  not  to  shirk 
duty,  but  he  should  also  early  learn  to  shoulder  responsibility. 
A  better  dictum  than  James's  would  be,  "Learn  to  make 
every  duty  a  pleasure.  Throw  yourself  into  your  work  in  such 
a  way  that  a  white  heat  of  interest  is  maintained  in  it."  Pos- 
sibly not  all  details  will  prove  entrancing,  but  interest  in  the 
ultimate  end  should  ease  the  momentary  difficulties  encoun- 
tered. We  need  not  search  for  difficulties  and  drudgery.  They 
will  appear  in  sufficient  numbers.  A  false  pedagogy  has  as- 
sumed that  some  subjects  are  better  than  others  because  they 
are  more  difficult  and  require  more  drudgery.  Anything  that 
produces  a  feeling  of  drudgery,  which  is  only  another  way  of 
saying  repugnance,  can  scarcely  commend  itself  as  a  means  of 
developing  moral  power. 

Ideals,  Expression,  and  Moral  Growth. — James  emphasizes 
the  necessity  of  acting  upon  every  emotion  unless  vacillation 
and  weakness  of  will  are  to  result.  He  italicizes  the  following 
maxim :  "  Seize  the  very  first  possible  opportunity  to  act  on  every 
resolution  you  make,  and  on  every  emotional  prompting  you 


73^  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

may  experience  in  the  direction  of  the  habits  you  aspire  to  gain." 
He  says:  "It  is  not  in  the  moment  of  their  forming,  but  in  the 
moment  of  their  producing  motor  effects,  that  resolves  and  aspira- 
tions communicate  the  new  'set'  to  the  brain.  .  .  .  Every  time 
a  resolve  or  a  fine  glow  of  feeling  evaporates  without  bearing 
practical  fruit  is  worse  than  a  chance  lost;  it  works  so  as  posi- 
tively to  hinder  future  resolutions  and  emotions  from  taking 
the  normal  path  of  discharge." 

While  I  cannot  coincide  with  this  extreme  opinion  yet  there 
is  much  truth  in  it.  Considered  in  its  extreme  position  it  would 
be  better  not  to  read  a  book,  to  go  to  church  or  to  the  theatre,  or 
to  put  one's  self  in  the  company  of  teachers  who  would  stimulate 
high  ideals.  This  I  cannot  believe.  Even  though  one  may 
not  act  immediately  upon  an  emotional  impulse  the  combined 
effects  of  all  such  emotions  produce  an  attitude  of  mind  which 
finally  causes  many  acts  in  consonance  with  the  emotions  cher- 
ished. The  theories  of  the  conservation  of  forces,  apperception, 
of  ideo-motor  action  all  lead  us  to  believe  that  effects  are  cumu- 
lative and  finally  induce,  directly  or  indirectly,  multitudes  of 
actions.  The  prose-poet  has  truthfully  written,  in  substance: 
"Sow  a  thought  and  reap  an  act;  sow  an  act  and  reap  a  habit; 
sow  a  habit  and  reap  a  character;  sow  a  character  and  reap  a 
destiny." 

But,  on  the  whole,  James  is  right.  Ideals  actualized  in  motor 
consequents  make  the  most  lasting  effects.  So  thoroughly  am 
I  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  his  main  thesis,  that  after  inserting 
the  foregoing  qualifications,  I  quote  with  approval  the  entire 
paragraph  apropos  of  this  maxim:  "No  matter  how  full  a 
reservoir  of  maxims  one  may  possess,  and  no  matter  how  good 
one's  sentiments  may  be,  if  one  have  not  taken  advantage  of 
every  concrete  opportunity  to  act,  one's  character  may  remain 
entirely  unaffected  for  the  better.  With  mere  good  intentions, 
hell  is  proverbially  paved.  And  this  is  an  obvious  consequence 
of  the  principles  we  have  laid  down.  A  'character,'  as  J.  S. 
Mill  says,  'is  a  completely  fashioned  will';  and  a  will,  in  the 
sense  in  which  he  means  it,  is  an  aggregate  of  tendencies  to 


VOLITION  AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        733 

act  in  a  firm  and  prompt  and  definite  way  upon  all  the  princi- 
pal emergencies  of  life.  A  tendency  to  act  only  becomes  effec- 
tively ingrained  in  us  in  proportion  to  the  uninterrupted  fre- 
quency with  which  the  actions  actually  occur,  and  the  brain 
'grows'  to  their  use.  .  .  .  There  is  no  more  contemptible  type 
of  human  character  than  that  of  the  nerveless  sentimentalist 
and  dreamer,  who  spends  his  life  in  a  weltering  sea  of  sensibility 
and  emotion,  but  who  never  does  a  manly  concrete  deed.  Rous- 
seau, inflaming  all  the  mothers  of  France,  by  his  eloquence,  to 
follow  Nature  and  nurse  their  babies  themselves,  while  he  sends 
his  own  children  to  the  foundling  hospital,  is  the  classical  exam- 
ple of  what  I  mean.  But  every  one  of  us  in  his  measure,  when- 
ever, after  glowing  for  an  abstractly  formulated  Good,  he  prac- 
tically ignores  some  actual  case,  among  the  squalid  'other 
particulars'  of  which  that  same  Good  lurks  disguised,  treads 
straight  on  Rousseau's  path.  All  Goods  are  disguised  by  the 
vulgarity  of  their  concomitants,  in  this  workra-day  world;  but 
woe  to  him  who  can  only  recognize  them  when  he  thinks  them 
in  their  pure  and  abstract  form!  The  habit  of  excessive  novel- 
reading  and  theatre-going  will  produce  true  monsters  in  this 
line.  The  weeping  of  a  Russian  lady  over  the  fictitious  per- 
sonages in  the  play,  while  her  coachman  is  freezing  to  death 
on  his  seat  outside,  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  everywhere  happens 
on  a  less  glaring  scale.  Even  the  habit  of  excessive  indulgence 
in  music,  for  those  who  are  neither  performers  themselves  nor 
musically  gifted  enough  to  take  it  in  a  purely  intellectual  way, 
has  probably  a  relaxing  effect  upon  the  character.  One  be- 
comes filled  with  emotions  which  habitually  pass  without  prompt- 
ing to  any  deed,  and  so  the  inertly  sentimental  condition  is  kept 
up.  The  remedy  would  be,  never  to  suffer  one's  self  to  have 
an  emotion  at  a  concert,  without  expressing  it  afterward  in 
some  active  way.  Let  the  expression  be  the  least  thing  in  the 
world — speaking  genially  to  one's  aunt,  or  giving  up  one's  seat 
in  a  horse-car,  if  nothing  more  heroic  offers — but  let  it  not  fail 
to  take  place."  ' 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  p.  125. 


734  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

Will  and  Deliberation. — Although  it  has  been  strongly  argued 
that  the  voluntary  execution  of  an  act  is  largely  conditioned 
upon  the  fund  of  allied  habits  which  have  been  built  up,  yet 
it  should  be  noted  that  the  highest  acts  of  will  involve  conscious 
deliberation.  While  it  has  been  strongly  urged  that  the  surest 
way  of  developing  strength  of  will  in  a  given  direction  is  to 
early  inculcate  habits  in  that  direction,  yet  this  should  not  be 
taken  to  mean  that  one  is  to  become  an  automaton.  It  does 
not  imply  that  the  child  should  not  become  a  reflective  being. 
He  should  most  certainly  be  early  accustomed  to  reflecting  upon 
his  conduct.  A  feeling  of  responsibility  for  sound  judgment 
and  righteous  action  should  early  gradually  become  character- 
istics of  one's  life.  It  is  a  perverted  and  pernicious  doctrine 
of  interest  and  will  which  assumes  that  youth  are  irresponsible 
beings  who  may  be  excused  for  every  deviation  from  the  path 
of  rectitude  on  the  ground  that  they  are  only  youth.  The 
doctrine  is  sometimes  carried  so  far  as  to  exonerate  even  uni- 
versity students  for  committing  things  which  would  land  other 
adults  in  the  penitentiary.  Though  college  education  should 
and  does  prolong  the  period  of  infancy  or  plasticity,  yet  all 
training  has  been  misdirected  if  it  has  not  developed  a  habit  of 
serious  reflection  upon  every  important  step  to  be  taken.  It 
should  not  produce  vacillation  and  hesitation,  but  rather  sound 
judgment  made  rapid  by  the  acquired  habit  of  always  reflecting 
and  marshalling  all  sides  of  a  question.  Individual  duty  and 
responsibility  are  among  the  highest  lessons  to  be  learned  and 
the  most  difficult. 

Habit,  Will,  and  Character. — A  trained  will  means  a  controlled 
mind  and  body,  an  organism  that  responds  to  the  behests  of 
conscience.  This  ideal  condition  can  only  be  secured  through 
oft-repeated  actions  in  the  desired  direction.  Every  action 
performed  by  a  child,  whether  initiated  by  himself  or  under 
compulsion,  leaves  a  tendency  to  a  repetition  of  the  same  action. 
Of  course  any  process  self-initiated  is  more  potent  by  far 
than  one  performed  under  compulsion.  Hence  the  importance 
of  securing  deliberate  righteous  action  on  the  part  of  the 


VOLITION   AND   MORAL   EDUCATION        735 

child.  But  right  conduct,  even  though  compulsory,  is  better 
for  the  child's  future  than  wrong  conduct  selected  by  the 
child.  Every  righteous  action  contributes  to  the  fund  of  future 
capital  which  constitutes  real  character.  What  one  does  in  a 
controlled  manner  when  off  his  guard  reveals  one's  real  char- 
acter. To  be  sure  most  of  us  masquerade  a  great  deal  and 
do  many  things  that  are  put  on  for  the  occasion.  These  may 
give  us  reputation,  but  they  are  not  parts  of  real  character.  It 
is  related  by  Schaeffer1  that  the  Pennsylvania  German  gives 
vent  to  his  feelings  in  profanity  in  his  own  native  dialect.  To 
show  further  how  control  is  only  secured  through  habitual 
reactions  he  adds  that,  "As  soon  as  he  says  his  prayers  he 
reverts  to  the  language  of  the  pulpit  and  of  Luther's  Bible 
because  he  there  finds  the  words  which  express  the  deepest 
wants  and  emotions  of  the  human  soul." 

1  Thinking  and  Learning  to  Think,  p.  93. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 


Meaning  of  General  Discipline. — How  do  the  various  special 
educational  activities  which  a  child  undergoes  affect  his  general 
powers  ?  This  is  a  question  of  vital  importance  in  determining 
educational  practice.  The  popular  mind  has  always  had  a 
ready  reply.  The  answer  is  substantially  that  exercise  is  the 
sine  qua  non  of  growth,  and  the  further  assumption  is  made  that 
the  effects  produced  are  not  confined  to  the  special  organs  or 
powers  involved.  It  is  held  that  the  effects  of  training  are 
general  and  that  whatever  is  gained  by  any  organ  or  power 
through  a  given  kind  of  activity  will  increase  the  efficiency  of 
all  other  organs  or  powers  and  can  be  utilized  in  all  other  situa- 
tions in  life.  The  strength  and  skill  derived  through  pitching 
hay,  swinging  Indian  clubs,  and  rowing,  for  example,  can  be 
used  in  skating,  swimming,  constructing  watches,  or  in  resist- 
ing fatigue  when  under  strain  in  professional  duties. 

Analogous  reasonings  are  followed  out  concerning  mental 
growth  and  exercise.  Each  subject  is  assumed  to  be  a  sort  of 
mental  grindstone  upon  which  the  wits  are  sharpened.  We  are 
told  that  the  study  of  arithmetic,  grammar,  etc.,  will  develop 
general  strength  of  mind — a  sort  of  mental  muscle — which  can 
be  drawn  upon  in  any  emergency.  It  is  assumed  that  the  one 
who  is  strong  in  arithmetic  will  be  equally  proficient  in  geometry, 
botany,  or  foreign  languages,  because  of  the  power  gained 
through  the  exercise  in  arithmetic.  The  traditional  subject 
most  recommended  for  strengthening  the  reasoning  powers  is 
arithmetic.  Robert  Recorde  was  the  author  of  a  book  on 
algebra  published  in  1557,  called  The  Whetstone  0}  Witte,  evi- 
dently because  he  regarded  it  as  a  sovereign  means  of  sharpen- 

736 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  737 

ing  the  faculties.  Nature  study  is  supposed  to  train  "  the  power 
of  observation,"  and  grammar  has  maintained  its  place  largely 
because  of  its  general  "disciplinary"  value.  It  is  said  to 
develop  keenness  of  perception,  to  strengthen  the  memory, 
make  one  logical,  give  one  insight,  etc.,  etc.  While  some  argue 
the  superior  efficacy  of  this  or  that  subject,  there  is  a  prevailing 
impression,  even  among  many  teachers,  that  it  does  not  matter 
very  much  what  one  studies  provided  it  is  difficult.  The  exer- 
cise required  by  hard  work  and  the  "discipline"  resulting  there- 
from are  the  chief  considerations.  The  how  is  thought  to  be  a 
much  more  important  consideration  than  the  what. 

The  exponent  of  general  discipline  speaks,  for  example,  of 
training  the  senses,  meaning  thereby  the  exercise  of  seeing, 
hearing,  or  touching  for  the  sake  of  the  exercise  alone.  What 
is  seen,  heard,  or  touched  is  regarded  as  of  minor  consequence. 
The  exercise  is  considered  the  important  thing.  By  the  process 
the  senses  are  supposed  to  have  taken  on  additional  power  so 
that  they  may  see,  hear,  or  touch  anything  and  everything  the 
better.  Primary  teachers  often  give  exercises  in  what  they 
term  "sense  training."  It  consists  in  presenting  various  colors, 
forms,  and  objects  to  be  seen  and  identified,  sounds  to  be  heard 
and  remembered  or  reproduced,  various  muscular  activities  to 
be  witnessed  and  reproduced,  etc.  By  this  means  it  is  supposed 
that  the  senses  are  "trained"  for  any  situation  in  life.  The 
exercises  are  certainly  good  as  far  as  they  go,  but  the  reasons 
ascribed  are  bad  pedagogy. 

Great  stress  has  been  placed  upon  the  assumed  principle  that 
the  mind  is  a  sort  of  homogeneous  organ  or  power  which  proper 
gymnastics  or  grooming  can  awaken  to  activity.  Through  this 
activity  it  is  supposed  to  have  gained  strength,  and  this  strength 
is  further  supposed  to  be  applicable  in  any  direction.  It  is  as- 
sumed that  mental  power  is  something  perfectly  general  and 
may  be  applied  to  any  specific  problem.  As  Dr.  De  Garmo  has 
stated  the  theory  (in  repudiating  it),  it  assumes  "that  the  mind 
can  store  up  mechanical  force  in  a  few  subjects,  like  grammar 
and  mathematics,  which  can  be  used  with  efficiency  in  any  de- 


738  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

partment  of  life."  "That  is,"  observes  Dr.  Hinsdale,1  "the 
process  that  formal  discipline  assumes  may  be  likened  to  the 
passage  of  energy  from  the  fires  of  the  sun,  first  to  vegetation, 
and  then  to  the  coal  beds  and  subterranean  reservoirs  of  oil 
and  gas,  whence  it  is  again  drawn  forth  to  cook  a  breakfast,  to 
warm  a  drawing-room,  to  light  a  city,  or  to  propel  a  steamship 
across  the  ocean." 

Prevalence  of  the  Theory  of  General  Discipline. — Although 
many  will  admit  that  elementary  school  studies  are  largely 
those  that  are  needed  for  practical  purposes  and  for  general 
information,  yet  when  the  high  school  is  considered  it  will  not 
be  so  readily  conceded.  The  high  school  and  the  college  are 
considered  chiefly  as  institutions  affording  mental  discipline 
and  the  cultivation  of  mental  power.  When  I  entered  the  uni- 
versity as  a  student  the  distinguished  president  in  his  address 
to  new  students  held  that  the  great  aim  of  education  is  the 
acquisition  of  mental  power  instead  of  facts.  He  stated  that 
he  had  ranked  high  in  mathematics  once,  but  felt  sure  he  could 
not  then  pass  a  freshman  entrance  examination  in  mathematics. 
He  regarded  the  derived  power,  however,  as  a  permanent  pos- 
session which  he  had  turned  to  account  in  every  mental  feat 
in  later  life.  He  was  a  great  man,  but  he  had  a  faulty  psychol- 
ogy. His  interpretation  of  the  processes  of  acquisition,  of  for- 
getting, and  of  mental  growth  and  development  was  entirely 
erroneous. 

In  the  schools  pupils  frequently  hear  the  faulty  notions  of 
mental  growth  and  development  dinned  into  their  ears.  When 
they  inquire  concerning  the  relation  of  their  studies  to  life  they 
are  often  put  off  with  the  answer  that  their  minds  are  becoming 
developed,  that  the  pursuit  of  the  subject  is  for  their  good,  and 
that  though  they  will  never  use  the  knowledge  gained  in  that 
subject,  the  hard  work  will  develop  their  perception,  their 
memory,  their  imagination,  their  reason,  etc.  Platform  speak- 
ers at  the  opening  exercises  emphasize  the  thought  that  if  the 
pupils  will  only  submit  patiently  to  the  prescribed  exercises, 

1  Studies  in  Education,  p.  46. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  739 

later  in  life  they  will  be  armored  for  any  sort  of  mental  fray. 
In  their  commencement  orations  the  fledglings  echo  the  refrain 
about  the  paramount  importance  of  mental  discipline,  though 
what  they  mean  by  it  is  still  more  hazy  and  undefined  in  their 
minds  than  in  the  minds  of  their  elders. 

Thorndike  in  discussing  the  same  question  says:1  "It  is 
clear  that  the  common  view  is  that  the  words  accuracy,  quick- 
ness, discrimination,  memory,  observation,  attention,  concen- 
tration, judgment,  reasoning,  etc.,  stand  for  some  real  and 
elemental  abilities  which  are  the  same  no  matter  what  material 
they  work  upon;  that  these  elemental  abilities  are  altered  by 
special  disciplines  to  a  large  extent;  that  they  retain  those  altera- 
tions when  turned  to  other  fields;  that  thus  in  a  more  or  less 
mysterious  way  learning  to  do  one  thing  well  will  make  one  do 
better  things  that  in  concrete  appearance  have  absolutely  no  com- 
munity with  it. 

"The  mind  is  regarded  as  a  machine  of  which  the  different 
faculties  are  parts.  Experiences  being  thrown  in  at  one  end, 
perception  perceives  them,  discrimination  tells  them  apart, 
memory  retains  them  and  so  on.  By  training  the  machine  is 
made  to  work  more  quickly,  efficiently  and  economically  with 
all  sorts  of  experiences.  Or  in  a  still  cruder  type  of  thinking  the 
mind  is  a  storage  battery  which  can  be  loaded  with  will-power 
or  intellect  or  judgment,  giving  the  individual  'a  surplus  of 
mind  to  expend.'  General  names  for  a  host  of  individual  proc- 
esses such  as  judgment,  precision,  concentration  are  falsely 
taken  to  refer  to  pieces  of  mental  machinery  which  we  can  once 
for  all  get  into  working  order,  or  still  worse  to  amounts  of 
some  thing  which  can  be  stored  up  in  bank  to  be  drawn  on  at 
leisure." 

The  doctrine  of  educational  gymnastics  has  gained  an  alarm- 
ing hold.  Teachers  are  told  that  "mental  power  is  a  more 
valuable  result  of  teaching  than  mere  knowledge,  and  hence 
the  process  of  acquiring  becomes  more  important  than  the 
knowledge  acquired.  Power  abides;  facts  are  forgotten." 

1  Educational  Psychology,  p.  84. 


740  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

Objections. — The  theory  has  gained  most  of  its  support  from 
the  fact  that  many  of  the  best  trained  minds  down  to  the  present 
have  taken  certain  traditional  courses  and  it  is  thereby  argued 
that  being  the  best  trained  and  having  had  certain  courses  they 
must  have  derived  their  power  through  those  courses.  It  is  for- 
gotten that  those  scholastic  courses  have  been  taken  by  those 
individuals  because  they  were  the  best  individuals  at  the  start 
and  therefore  became  students  and  continued  as  such.  Modern 
education  is  demonstrating  that  entirely  different  courses  may 
attract  the  best  individuals,  and  that  these  individuals  at  the 
close  of  the  pursuit  of  such  courses  are  still  among  the  best. 
It  is  being  clearly  demonstrated  as  fallacious  to  assume  that  the 
best  individuals  are  best  because  of  a  particular  course  of  study. 
It  is  equally  fallacious  to  assume  that  the  wide  variety  of  powers 
necessary  to  place  an  individual  among  the  great  or  distinguished 
have  all  been  developed  through  a  narrow  range  of  experiences. 

A  further  fallacy  comes  from  likening  the  mind  to  the  muscles 
of  the  body,  which  by  specific  exercise  can  develop  strength  that 
can  be  utilized  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Even  in  this  physical 
analogy  there  is  much  fallacy.  Dr.  Hinsdale  says:  "The  force 
engendered  by  any  defined  exertion  of  physical  power  is  fully 
available  for  all  like  kinds  of  exercise,  but  only  partially  so  for 
unlike  kinds.  Thus,  the  power  or  skill  engendered  by  driving 
nails  can  all  be  used  in  driving  nails,  but  only  partially  in  shov- 
ing a  plane.  .  .  .  Activity  tends,  first,  to  invigorate  the  whole 
body — 'to  tone  it  up,'  as  we  say — and,  secondly,  to  overflow 
into  new  channels  lying  near  to  the  one  in  which  it  was  created. 
.  .  .  The  facts  do  not  prove  that  a  reservoir  of  power  can  be 
accumulated  by  any  one  kind  of  effort  that  can  be  used  indiffer- 
ently for  any  and  all  purposes.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
formal  physical  discipline.  Energy  created  by  activity  flowing 
in  one  channel  cannot  be  turned  at  will  into  any  other  channel. 
A  boxer  is  not  perforce  a  fencer.  A  pugilist  in  training  does 
not  train  promiscuously,  but  according  to  certain  strict  methods 
that  experience  has  approved."  * 

1  Studies  in  Education,  p.  46. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  741 

Proiessor  O'Shea  writes  the  following  in  his  very  excellent 
chapter  on  "Formal  Discipline":1  "The  physiological  princi- 
ple upon  which  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline  is  based  is  seen 
upon  examination  not  to  be  quite  true  as  it  is  generally  stated. 
Muscular  activity  which  is  concerned  with  particular  employ- 
ments and  undertakings  does  not  beget  a  power  that  can  be 
expended  without  loss  in  the  accomplishment  of  any  task  what- 
soever. The  oarsman  cannot  turn  all  the  energy  he  develops 
in  rowing  to  good  account  in  pitching  hay  or  pulling  beans  or 
shoeing  a  horse  or  carrying  a  hod  on  his  shoulder.  The  pugilist 
cannot  employ  without  loss  in  another  form  of  occupation  the 
brawn  gained  in  his  training.  No  particular  form  of  muscular 
activity,  in  short,  can  be  made  to  yield  power  that  can  be  util- 
ized in  other  ways  without  some  waste.  And  why?  Because 
rowing,  for  example,  calls  into  play  in  definite  combinations 
muscles  and  their  energizing  nerve  centres  which  are  not  co- 
ordinated in  precisely  this  way  in  any  different  activity." 

Professor  Hanus  remarks:  "Power  means  ability  to  do  some- 
thing— to  bring  about  results.  The  results  achieved  will  always 
be  in  some  one  field  of  activity,  however;  and  the  kind  of  power 
developed  through  the  pursuit  of  a  given  subject  will  conse- 
quently be  usually  restricted  to  power  in  dealing  with  data  of 
a  particular  sort.  That  is  to  say,  power  in  physics  is  different 
from  power  in  Latin;  and  these  forms  of  power  are  different 
from  power  in  plastic  art  or  pure  mathematics,  as  these  last  are 
different  from  each  other.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  power  in 
general  that  can  be  cultivated  through  the  pursuit  of  any  one 
subject,  and  can  then  be  drawn  upon  at  any  time  for  successful 
achievement  in  other  subjects.  That  a  man  shows  power  first 
in  classics  and  afterward  in  mathematics  or  botany,  for  example, 
does  not  prove  that  the  man's  mathematical  or  scientific  ability 
was  developed  through  the  classics.  It  proves  only  that  the 
man  has  both  linguistic  and  mathematical  or  scientific  ability. 
It  does  happen,  of  course,  that  different  subjects  like  mathe- 
matics and  physics,  or  physics  and  chemistry,  or  drawing  and 
1  Education  as  Adjustment,  p.  248, 


742  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

painting,  are  closely  related;  and  hence  that  the  data  of  one 
subject  are  often  found  to  some  extent  in  another,  and  also  that 
the  method  of  one  subject  can  be  appropriately  applied  to 
another.  .  .  .  But,  in  general,  the  relations  of  the  subjects  will 
not  be  close  enough  to  justify  the  assumption  that  power  may 
be  developed  through  one  subject  for  use  in  other  subjects."  1 

Observations  and  Experiments. — We  need  but  to  recall  the 
discussions  concerning  memory,  sensory  training,  apperception, 
and  training  in  powers  of  observation  to  justify  our  conclusion 
that  the  training  of  psychological  powers  is  comparatively 
specialized  in  its  effects.  For  example,  the  child  who  has  been 
practised  in  observing  colors  is  not  thereby  made  more  expert 
in  discriminating  tones  in  music,  more  accurate  in  spelling,  or  in 
arithmetical  processes.  We  hear  much  fiction  concerning  the 
efficiency  of  certain  studies,  especially  natural  science,  in  train- 
ing to  acuteness  of  observation.  It  has  been  taught  that  training 
to  observe  in  one  field  will  insure  skill  in  other  directions  as 
well.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact  easily  verified  by  common  ex- 
perience, training  in  observation  is  largely  special  in  its  effects 
rather  than  perfectly  general.  Training  in  observing  zoological 
specimens,  for  example,  will  not  give  increased  skill  in  observing 
music,  grammatical  niceties,  or  spring  fashions. 

But  in  order  to  test  the  matter  in  a  more  scientific  way  than 
is  possible  by  unsystematic  observation  of  various  effects  of 
training  a  great  variety  and  amount  of  experimental  work  has 
been  performed.  These  experiments  have  been  designed  to 
test  the  influence  of  learning  one  kind  of  activity  upon  the 
acquisition  of  some  different  kind  of  activity.  Much  of  the 
experimentation  has  been  in  the  realm  of  memory.  Some  of 
the  best  has  been  in  the  realm  of  experimental  tests  in  perception 
or  training  in  power  of  observation.  The  best  and  most  ex- 
haustive experimental  work  in  this  line  has  been  done  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  Thorndike  at  Columbia  University.  Thorn- 
dike  and  Woodworth  made  a  great  variety  of  experiments  to 
discover  the  influence  of  training  in  estimating  weights,  dis- 

1  Educational  Aims  and  Educational  Values,  p.  8. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  743 

tances,  and  areas  upon  other  subsequent  forms  of  learning. 
In  Thorndike's  own  words:1 

"Individuals  practiced  estimating  the  areas  of  rectangles 
from  10  to  100  sq.  cm.  in  size  until  a  very  marked  improvement 
was  attained.  The  improvement  in  accuracy  for  areas  of  the 
same  size  but  of  different  shape  due  to  this  training  was  only 
44  per  cent,  as  great  as  that  for  areas  of  the  same  shape  and 
size.  For  areas  of  the  same  shape  but  from  140  to  300  sq.  cm. 
in  size  the  improvement  was  30  per  cent,  as  great.  For  areas  of 
different  shape  and  from  140  to  400  sq.  cm.  in  size  the  improve- 
ment was  52  per  cent,  as  great. 

"Training  in  estimating  weights  of  from  40  to  120  grams 
resulted  in  only  39  per  cent,  as  much  improvement  in  estimating 
weights  from  120  to  1,800  grams.  Training  in  estimating  lines 
from  .5  to  1.5  inches  long  (resulting  in  a  reduction  of  error  to 
25  per  cent,  of  the  initial  amount)  resulted  in  no  improvement 
in  the  estimation  of  lines  6  to  12  inches  long. 

"Training  in  perceiving  words  containing  e  and  5  gave  a 
certain  amount  of  improvement  in  speed  and  accuracy  in  that 
special  ability.  In  the  ability  to  perceive  words  containing  i 
and  /,  5  and  p,  c  and  a,  e  and  r,  a  and  n,  I  and  o,  misspelled 
words  and  A 's,  there  was  an  improvement  in  speed  of  only  39 
per  cent,  as  much  as  in  the  ability  specially  trained,  and  in 
accuracy  of  only  25  per  cent,  as  much.  Training  in  perceiving 
English  verbs  gave  a  reduction  in  time  of  nearly  21  per  cent, 
and  in  omission  of  70  per  cent.  The  ability  to  perceive  other 
parts  of  speech  showed  a  reduction  in  time  of  3  per  cent.,  but 
an  increase  in  omissions  of  over  100  per  cent. 

"These  experiments  showed  very  clearly  the  influence  of  (i) 
the  acquisition  during  special  training  of  ideas  of  method  of 
general  utility,  and  also  (2)  of  facility  with  certain  elements  that 
appeared  in  many  other  complexes.  Instances  of  (i)  are  learn- 
ing in  the  10  to  100  cm.  training  series  that  one  has  a  tendency 
to  over-estimate  all  areas  and  consciously  making  a  discount  for 
this  tendency,  no  matter  what  the  size  or  shape  of  the  surface 

1  Educational  Psychology,  p.  90  et  seq. 


744  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

may  be;  learning  to  look  especially  for  the  less  common  letter 
(e.  g.,  s  in  the  case  of  e-s  words,  p  in  the  case  of  s-p  words)  in 
the  training  series  and  adopting  the  habit  for  all  similar  work; 
learning  to  estimate  areas  in  comparison  with  a  mental  standard 
rather  than  the  objective  i  sq.  cm.,  25  sq.  cm.,  and  100  sq.  cm. 
squares  which  each  experimenter  had  before  him  (after  one  gets 
mental  standards  of  the  areas  he  judges  more  accurately  if  he 
pays  no  attention  whatever  to  the  objective  standards).  An 
instance  of  (2)  is  the  uniform  increase  of  speed  of  eye  movements 
in  all  the  perception  tests  through  training  in  one,  an  increase 
often  gained  at  the  expense  of  accuracy. 

"In  the  opinion  of  the  authors  these  experiments  show  that: 

"Improvement  in  any  single  mental  function  need  not  im- 
prove the  ability  in  functions  commonly  called  by  the  same 
name.  It  may  injure  it. 

"Improvement  in  any  single  mental  function  rarely  brings 
about  equal  improvement  in  any  other  function,  no  matter  how 
similar,  for  the  working  of  every  mental  function-group  is  con- 
ditioned by  the  nature  of  the  data  in  each  particular  case. 

"The  very  slight  amount  of  variation  in  the  nature  of  the 
data  necessary  to  affect  the  efficiency  of  a  function-group  makes 
it  fair  to  infer  that  no  change  in  the  data,  however  slight,  is 
without  effect  on  the  function.  The  loss  in  the  efficiency  of  a 
function  trained  with  certain  data,  as  we  pass  to  data  more  and 
more  unlike  the  first,  makes  it  fair  to  infer  that  there  is  always 
a  point  where  the  loss  is  complete,  a  point  beyond  which  the 
influence  of  the  training  has  not  extended.  The  rapidity  of 
this  loss,  that  is,  its  amount  in  the  case  of  data  very  similar  to 
the  data  on  which  the  function  was  trained,  makes  it  fair  to 
infer  that  this  point  is  nearer  than  has  been  supposed. 

"The  general  consideration  of  the  cases  of  retention  or  of  loss 
of  practice  effect  seems  to  make  it  likely  that  spread  of  practice 
occurs  only  where  identical  elements  are  concerned  in  the  in- 
fluencing and  influenced  function." 

Dr.  Bagley  arranged  some  observations  "to  determine  whether 
the  habit  of  producing  neat  papers  in  arithmetic  will  function 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  745 

with  reference  to  neat  written  work  in  other  studies;  the  tests 
were  confined  to  the  intermediate  grades.  The  results  are 
most  startling  in  their  failure  to  show  the  slightest  improvement 
in  language  and  spelling  papers,  although  the  improvement  in 
the  arithmetic  papers  was  noticeable  from  the  very  first."  Dr. 
Bagley  further  comments  upon  this  by  saying:  "The  very  de- 
cided trend  of  all  this  experimental  evidence  seems  to  indicate 
that  the  theoretical  impossibility  of  a  generalized  habit — either 
'marginal'  or  subconscious — is  thoroughly  substantiated  by 
accurate  tests."  l 

Mr.  Lewis,  of  Dartmouth,  conducted  an  investigation  in 
1902-1903  to  discover  some  of  the  correlations  among  the  dif- 
ferent mental  powers  and  to  test  specifically  whether  it  is  true 
"that  the  good  reasoners  in  one  subject  are  the  good  general 
reasoners?  Or,  more  specifically,  is  the  good  mathematical 
reasoner  the  good  reasoner  in  every-day  practical  affairs,  and  in 
law?"  He  says  that  of  the  twenty-four  groups  of  high-school 
pupils  compared  in  mathematical  reasoning  and  practical 
reasoning,  the  five  in  each  group  standing  highest  were  selected 
as  conspicuous  for  their  ability  in  mathematical  reasoning.  Of 
the  1 20  thus  distinguished,  63  per  cent,  were  at  the  foot  of  the 
list  in  the  tests  of  practical  reasoning.  On  the  other  hand,  47 
per  cent,  of  those  at  the  foot  of  the  list,  judged  by  mathematical 
reasoning,  were  conspicuous  for  their  position  at  the  head  of 
the  list  in  the  practical  reasoning  tests.  -As  a  supplementary 
test,  and  one  still  more  convincing,  he  examined  the  records 
from  ten  college  graduating  classes  of  men  who  had  studied 
mathematics  and  law,  and  compared  their  relative  efficiency  in 
the  two  subjects.  Mr.  Lewis  remarks  that  "50  per  cent,  of 
the  best  students  in  law  were  conspicuous  for  their  poor  show- 
ing in  mathematics;  and  42  per  cent,  of  those  poorest  in  law 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  series  in  mathematics."  His  diagram 
indicates  at  a  glance  the  striking  comparison.  The  further 
comment  should  be  quoted:  "These  tests  are  surely  convincing 
of  one  thing,  viz.,  that  students  able  in  mathematical  reasoning 
1  The  Educative  Process,  p.  208. 


746  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

are  not  even  generally  able  in  practical  reasoning  and  law.  And 
by  an  allowable  inference,  persons  able  in  one  kind  of  reasoning 
are  frequently  not  able  in  other  kinds.  But  once  having  estab- 
lished this  point,  the  whole  theory  of  faculties  falls  to  the  ground, 
and  with  it  the  stronghold  of  formal  discipline."  1 

Dr.  Naomi  Norsworthy  conducted  some  experiments  upon 
school-children  to  test  the  effects  of  practice  and  reached  the 
following  conclusions:2  "It  seems  probable  that  certain  func- 
tions which  are  of  importance  in  school  work,  such  as  quickness 
in  arithmetic,  accuracy  in  spelling,  attention  to  forms,  etc.,  are 
highly  specialized  and  not  secondary  results  of  some  general 
function.  That  just  as  there  is  no  such  thing  as  general  memory, 
so  there  is  no  such  thing  as  general  quickness  or  accuracy  of 
observation.  .  .  .  Accuracy  in  spelling  is  independent  of  accu- 
racy in  multiplication,  and  quickness  in  arithmetic  is  not  found 
with  quickness  in  marking  misspelled  words;  ability  to  pick  out 
the  word  'boy'  on  a  printed  page  is  no  guarantee  that  the  child 
will  be  able  to  pick  out  a  geometrical  form  with  as  great  ease  and 
accuracy." 

Some  experiments  have  been  performed  which  seem  to  show 
that  as  a  result  of  exercise  of  one  kind  some  slight  gain  of  power 
may  be  derived  in  other  directions.  Ebert  and  Meumann,3 
through  a  long  series  of  experiments  on  memory,  were  led  to 
believe  that  some  definite  gain  was  perceptible  in  other  direc- 
tions than  that  secured  in  the  training  material.  Experiments 
in  exercising  with  the  right  hand  show  that  not  only  the  right 
hand  may  gain,  but  that  the  left  hand  does  also.4  But  Swift  dis- 
tinctly disclaims  that  such  results  lend  any  support  to  the  theory 
of  formal  education.  He  says:5  "It  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  such  experiments  in  cross-education  give  support 
to  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline.  There  is  no  evidence  to 

1  "A  Study  in  Formal  Discipline,"  School  Review,  13  :  289-291. 

2  New  York  Teachers'  Monographs,  1902,  vol.  IV,  pp.  96-99. 

3  Archiu  fur  die  Gesanite  Psychologic,  vol.  IV,  1905. 

4  See  Davis,    Yale  Studies  in  Psychology,  vol.  VIII;    and  Swift,  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  vol.  XIV. 

5  Mind  in  the  Making,  p.  190. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  747 

show  that  training  has  general  value.  Indeed,  it  all  argues 
strongly  for  the  influence  of  content."  Coover  and  Angell 
believed  that  through  a  training  in  discriminating  tones  some 
increase  occurred  in  the  discrimination  in  shades  of  colors.1 
Judd  reports  some  experiments  of  his  in  which  judging  one 
kind  of  lines  seemed  to  have  some  influence  in  determining  the 
length  of  other  lines.2 

But  even  in  the  case  of  gain  in  one  function  by  activity  of 
another,  the  explanation  of  the  gain  does  not  reinforce  the  old 
theory  of  formal  discipline.  Most  of  the  authorities  explain 
the  gain  as  coming  from  the  discovery  of  better  methods  of 
learning;  or  that  the  materials  learned  or  the  organs  involved 
possess  common  elements.3  Angell  believes  that  the  gain  may 
be  explained  in  terms  of  attention  and  the  formation  of  certain 
generalized  habits  of  acting.  In  all  exacting  work  one  learns 
how  to  shut  out  distracting  factors  and  in  that  way  to  attend 
better.  This  is  rather  negative.  Real  attention  depends  upon 
the  content  of  mind — upon  apperception  and  association. 
Even  Judd,4  who  is  one  of  the  strongest  exponents  of  the  belief 
in  generalized  training,  seems  to  explain  the  matter  in  terms 
of  association  and  the  generalization  of  habits. 

Colvin  5  believes  that  there  may  be  a  transference  or  spread 
of  effects  if  there  are  common  elements;  or  if  general  ideals  or 
attitudes  are  produced  in  connection  with  a  given  activity.  He 
argues  that  it  is  the  business  of  teaching  to  promote  this  trans- 
ference through  the  establishment  of  purposive  associations. 
He  shows  that  oftentimes  the  child  is  one-sided  in  develop- 
ment, e.  g.,  a  poor  visualizer,  and  therefore  a  poor  reader. 
This  particular  power  should  be  connected  with  the  reading 
process  and  made  more  efficient.  He  says:  "In  seeking  to 

1  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol.  XVIII,  1907. 

2  Educational  Review,  June,  1908. 

3  See   Pillsbury,   Educational  Review,   June,    1908;     Fracker,    Psychological 
Review,  Monograph  Supplement,  June,  1908;    Bennett,  Formal  Discipline. 

4 1.oc.  cit. 

5  "Some  Facts  in  Partial  Justification  of  the  So-called  Dogma  of  Formal 
Discipline,"  University  of  Illinois  Bulletin,  October,  1009. 


748  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

secure  transfer,  especially  where  purpose  does  not  play  an  im- 
portant part,  see  to  it  that  the  stimulus  which  is  to  call  forth 
the  desired  reaction  is  such  that  it  may  be  a  common  element  in 
many  objective  situations.  If,  for  example,  it  is  desired  to 
promote  in  general  the  habit  of  observation,  it  will  be  unwise 
to  cultivate  this  habit  in  a  very  narrow  and  unusual  field  of 
experience.  Habits  of  observation  may  doubtless  be  secured 
by  training  the  observer  to  give  careful  attention  to  objects  ap- 
pearing under  the  microscope.  This  training  in  observation 
will  on  the  whole  probably  have  less  possibilities  of  transfer  to 
other  fields  than  observation  cultivated  in  the  study  of  more 
common  objects  of  life,  such  as  those  of  plants  and  animals 
that  are  often  met  with  in  the  daily  environment." 

In  the  cultivation  of  the  emotions  Colvin  urges  the  estab- 
lishment of  certain  general  emotional  attitudes  through  many 
specific  acts  inspiring  the  emotions.  Is  this  not  the  very  best 
kind  of  anti-formalistic  doctrine?  The  very  point  which  the 
anti-formalist  emphasizes  is  that  without  definite  attempts  the 
establishment  of  these  associations  will  probably  not  be  made 
and  if  not  made  there  is  no  transference.  The  anti-formalist 
argues  for  a  breadth  and  variety  of  experience  and  the  purposive 
establishment  of  bonds  of  association  among  these  experiences. 
The  child  easily  fails  to  see  the  general  rule  or  law  in  a  particu- 
lar example  and  after  learning  the  statement  of  general  laws, 
almost  as  frequently  fails  to  know  which  general  rule  applies 
to  the  particular  example.  My  own  entire  discussion  of  mem- 
ory, association,  and  the  conceptual  process  has  sought  to  em- 
phasize the  necessity  of  generalizing  all  specific  knowledge — 
transferring  the  effects.  But  at  the  same  time  it  is  fully  recog- 
nized that  generalizing  and  associating  do  not  necessarily  take 
place  so  that  universals  are  always  seen  in  particulars  or  par- 
ticulars in  universals.  The  accomplishment  of  this  is  really 
the  large  problem  of  teaching.  The  uneducated  man  gets 
plenty  of  isolated  experiences,  but  he  does  not  universalize  them. 

The  fact  that  the  practice  of  a  habit  until  it  becomes  crystal- 
lized renders  it  difficult  to  acquire  other  habits  is  an  argument 


GENERAL  DISCIPLINE  749 

showing  the  isolation  and  insulation  of  structures  and  functions. 
Fracker  has  clearly  shown  that  improvement  in  one  direction 
may  definitely  hinder  improvement  in  other  directions.  The 
cases  of  prodigies  who  are  so  hyper-developed  in  one  or  a 
few  powers  and  so  abnormally  under-developed  in  others  are 
good  evidence  against  any  doctrine  of  the  general  spread  of 
effects. 

One  of  the  most  significant  lines  of  psychological  investiga- 
tion in  throwing  light  upon  the  question  of  general  mental  de- 
velopment through  special  training  has  been  the  investigation 
of  memory  training.  The  popular  mind  declares  that  a  child 
should  memorize  gems  of  poetry,  proverbs,  entire  poetic  and 
prose  selections,  etc.,  in  the  perfect  belief  that  his  general 
memory  will  be  strengthened.  Never  was  there  a  greater  fic- 
tion. While  it  is  a  good  thing  to  memorize  gems  of  poetry, 
the  reason  usually  assigned  is  a  bad  one  pedagogically.  The 
quotations  should  be  learned  for  the  sake  of  the  thought  and 
not  as  memory  training.  By  careful  experimentation  James 
and  others  have  shown,  and  I  have  confirmed,  that  long  prac- 
tice in  memorizing  material  of  one  kind  aids  memory  very  little, 
if  any,  for  totally  different  things.  Even  long  attention  to 
memorizing  of  poetic  writing  does  not  assist  much,  if  any,  in 
memorizing  prose.  Still  less  would  the  poetry  assist  in  the 
memory  of  chemical  names  and  geological  specimens.  Every 
one  can  confirm  this  in  his  own  experience.  Every  adult 
student,  according  to  the  popular  doctrine,  ought  to  possess  a 
perfect  memory  for  all  things.  The  poor  memory  has  been 
crammed  and  exercised  on  various  studies  for  upward  of  twenty 
years,  but  how  many  adults  remember  the  names  of  persons 
they  meet  any  better  than  they  did  in  childhood?  How  many 
married  men  have  infallible  memories  for  mailing  their  wives' 
letters,  or  purchasing  the  spool  of  thread,  or  can  recall  the  dress 
that  somebody  wore  at  the  party,  or  the  decorations  of  the 
house,  or  the  setting  of  the  table,  the  pattern  of  the  glassware, 
etc.  ?  I  suspect  that  the  more  the  mind  has  been  exercised  with 
Latin  roots,  antediluvian  fossils,  amoeboid  specimens,  or  mathe- 


750  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

matical  formulae,  the  less  apt  the  every-day  affairs  are  to  be 
remembered. 

We  know  that  there  are  many  types  of  memories.  One  per- 
son has  a  good  verbal  memory,  a  second  a  memory  for  faces, 
a  third  for  dates,  a  fourth  has  a  good  memory  for  facts  scien- 
tifically arranged  but  a  poor  desultory  memory,  another  a  mem- 
ory for  musical  tones,  etc.  Now  if  memory  exercise  in  general 
operated  according  to  the  hypothesis  of  formal  discipline  should 
not  one's  memories  for  all  types  be  equally  good?  The  fact  is 
we  have  memories  rather  than  memory.  The  same  line  of  dis- 
cussion would  be  applicable  to  imaginations.  Few  people  have 
imaginative  powers  equally  strong  in  all  directions.  Still  more 
striking  are  the  examples  of  specialized  development  in  those 
with  phenomenal  memories  and  imbecile  understanding.  Again, 
if  the  dogma  of  formal  discipline  were  true,  why  should  not  the 
intellect,  the  feelings,  and  the  will  all  be  developed  equally? 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know  that  there  is  often  strikingly  un- 
equal development  among  these  powers  in  the  same  person. 
There  are,  for  example,  persons  of  wonderful  mental  acumen, 
but  cold  logicians  without  a  sign  of  emotionalism.  Then  there 
is  the  enthusiast  whose  emotions  often  lead  his  judgment  astray. 
We  even  frequently  classify  individuals  and  peoples  upon  the 
basis  of  these  differences,  as  choleric,  phlegmatic,  intellectual, 
impulsive,  explosive,  deliberative,  etc.  With  any  given  power 
or  faculty  we  may  often  find  great  extremes  in  the  same  indi- 
vidual. Take  the  judgment,  for  example.  As  Dr.  Hinsdale 
remarks:  "No  curious  observer  can  fail  to  notice  how  practical 
ability  to  judge  and  to  reason  tends  to  run  in  special  channels. 
Eminence  in  microscopy,  in  sanitary  science,  in  engineering,  in 
philology,  in  pedagogy,  in  a  thousand  specialized  pursuits,  is  no 
guaranty  of  ability  in  other  matters,  or  even  of  good  sense  in  the 
common  affairs  of  life.  The  only  astrologist  whom  I  have  ever 
happened  to  know  personally  was  an  eminent  civil  engineer." 

Oppenheim2  wrote:  "Proficiency  in  one  direction  does  not 
necessarily  imply  an  equal  proficiency  in  others,  and  a  bankrupt 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  52.  2  The  Development  of  the  Child,  p.  92. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  75  r 

in  business  may  be  a  brilliant  success  in  rearing  offspring.  .  .  . 
A  man  may  be  a  brilliant  mathematician,  or  a  profound  philos- 
opher, without  necessarily  showing  a  fitting  appreciation  of  the 
physical  and  mental  needs  of  his  family."  Thorndike  re- 
marks:1 "The  mental  traits  involved  in  the  pursuit  of  a  school 
study  are  always  complex  and  vary  with  the  different  aspects 
of  the  subject  and  the  different  methods  of  teaching  used.  For 
instance  physical  geography  taught  as  a  science  demands  differ- 
ent capacities  from  commercial  geography  taught  as  it  commonly 
is.  Formal  grammar,  theme  writing,  the  history  of  literature, 
and  aesthetic  appreciation  may  all  be  called  '  English,'  but  they 
depend  upon  capacities  that  have  little  in  common." 

Professor  Carpenter,  in  combating  the  theory  of  vicarious 
mental  discipline,  said:2  "Men  trained  almost  exclusively  in 
Latin  and  Greek  are  quite  as  likely  to  write  badly  as  to  write 
well."  And  Professor  Baker  wrote  in  the  same  book3  that 
"discipline  in  and  of  itself  is  of  much  less  efficacy  than  was 
formerly  supposed.  It  has  been  demonstrated  that  good  intel- 
lectual habits  are  not  necessarily  transferable;  that  a  high 
degree  of  accuracy  in  one  line  of  activity  is  often  found  com- 
patible with  actual  slovenliness  in  another.  In  fine,  that  dis- 
cipline is  valuable  in  and  for  the  field  of  work  in  which  it  is 
given,  and  valueless  for  anything  outside  that  field.  Discipline 
in  reading  and  writing,  then,  while  it  would  make  good  readers 
and  good  writers  of  the  pupils,  would  do  nothing  else  for  them." 

Adams4  sets  out,  in  his  characteristic  way,  some  of  the  ab- 
surdities of  formal  training  when  applied  to  moral  education. 
He  says:  "What  could  call  into  play  more  of  a  boy's  faculties 
than  orchard-robbing?  Almost  all  the  virtues  are  trained  in 
the  exercise  of  this  vice.  The  necessary  planning  demands 
prudence,  forethought,  caution.  The  choosing  of  the  right 
moment  implies  careful  observation,  judicious  estimate  of  char- 
acter, and  intelligent  calculation  of  probabilities.  The  actual 

1  Educational  Psychology,  p.  35. 

2  Carpenter,  Baker,  and  Scott,  The  Teaching  of  English,  p.  17.         *P    78. 
* Herbartian  Psychology  Applied  to  Education,  p.  111. 


752  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

expedition  demands  the  greatest  courage,  firmness,  self-control. 
Climbing  the  tree  and  seizing  the  fruit  are  only  possible  as  the 
result  of  the  most  accurate  adjustment  of  means  to  end.  All 
the  results  aimed  at  in  the  most  liberal  intellectual  education 
are  here  secured;  no  teacher  is  required;  and  the  boy  enjoys 
it.  Why  does  not  apple-stealing  rank  with  Latin  and  mathe- 
matics as  a  mental  gymastic?" 

Arguments  from  Variability  in  Powers. — Were  the  doctrine 
of  general  discipline  true  there  ought  to  be  no  variations  among 
our  powers.  The  power  gained  in  one  capacity  is  said  to  be 
carried  over  to  all  others.  All  varieties  of  accomplishment 
dependent  upon  a  given  power  ought  then  to  be  equally  at- 
tained. For  example,  one  ought  to  be  as  proficient  in  algebra 
as  in  history,  as  proficient  in  geometry  as  in  algebra,  as  good  in 
grammar  as  in  botany,  etc.  But  it  needs  no  demonstration  to 
convince  that  there  are  great  variations  in  accomplishment 
among  different  subjects  by  the  same  individual,  and  what  is 
more,  these  varieties  in  accomplishment  often  represent  funda- 
mental differences  in  capacity.  One  may  be  inclined  to  natural 
science  and  have  poor  mathematical  ability,  be  a  fine  linguist 
and  sadly  lacking  in  mathematical  reasoning,  or  skilful  in 
music  and  poorly  equipped  for  logic  and  philosophy.  Who 
ever  saw  many  musicians  with  a  philosophical  bent  of  mind  ? 
It  is  even  true  that  a  given  individual  may  have  rare  power  in 
algebraic  mathematics,  where  all  depends  upon  logical  trains 
of  thought  and  power  of  abstraction,  but  may  be  very  inefficient 
in  geometric  mathematics,  where  so  much  depends  upon  those 
qualities  of  visual  imagination  necessary  to  a  good  topograph- 
ical mind.  How  many  would  be  willing  to  be  judged  mentally 
for  all  situations  by  ability  to  spell?  So  generally  is  inaptitude 
for  spelling  recognized  that  no  one  jeopardizes  his  reputation 
by  confessing  to  being  far  short  in  this  particular.  Probably 
many  cases  of  poor  orthography  bespeak  carelessness  in  the 
matter  rather  than  the  lack  of  ability,  but  multitudes  justly  take 
refuge  under  the  plea  of  incapacity.  It  is  but  necessary  to  note 
also  the  ease  with  which  some  children  learn  to  spell.  Those 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  753 

who  have  to  toil  at  it  and  then  achieve  indifferent  results  are  apt 
to  marvel  at  the  celerity  of  the  more  favored  ones.  Thorndike1 
reports  a  class  test  in  spelling  which  shows  that  the  best  speller 
had  nineteen  out  of  twenty  words  correct,  while  the  poorest 
missed  all  but  three.  Any  teacher  in  the  work  could  duplicate 
the  list. 

Biological  Evidence. — One  of  the  most  convincing  arguments 
against  the  theory  of  formal  discipline  comes  from  biology. 
Exercise  of  an  organ  or  function  tends  to  produce  development 
of  that  organ  or  function.  While  such  exercise  may  have  a 
general  tonic  effect  upon  the  rest  of  the  organism,  growth  and 
development  are  largely  limited  to  the  parts  exercised.  Our 
study  of  the  evolution  of  the  various  powers  of  body  and  mind 
showed  clearly  the  effects  of  stimulations  long-continued  upon 
given  portions  of  the  organism.  We  noted,  for  example,  how 
special  forms  of  activity  had  changed  the  muzzle  and  the  feet 
of  the  polar  bear;  how  particular  modes  of  life  had  developed  in 
other  animals  peculiar  claws,  teeth,  hoofs,  hair,  eyes,  ears,  etc. ; 
how  changes  occur  in  plants  when  removed  from  one  environ- 
ment to  another.  In  all  of  these  it  was  evident  that  the  applica- 
tion of  new  stimuli  to  a  given  organ  or  function  made  its  effects 
manifest  almost  wholly  in  that  limited  portion.  In  a  negative 
way  the  withdrawal  of  a  particular  stimulus  causes  atrophy  in  the 
special  organ.  One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  this  is  in  the  case 
of  cave  animals,  whose  eyes  have  atrophied  and  become  rudi- 
mentary. The  animals  as  a  whole  are  little  affected.  Simi- 
larly changes  in  hoofs,  fur,  legs,  fins,  teeth,  etc.,  take  place  with 
little  correlative  effect  upon  other  portions  of  the  animal. 

The  theory  of  the  localization  of  function  and  all  the  facts 
supporting  it  are  arguments  against  the  theory  of  formal  dis- 
cipline. Special  localized  areas  and  special  functions  could  never 
have  .been  developed  had  not  the  effects  of  exercise  been  cu- 
mulative at  certain  points  rather  than  evenly  diffused.  Nour- 
ishment was  supplied  to  the  particular  parts  in  excess  of  that 
supplied  to  any  other  parts.  Consequently  growth  and  de- 

1  Principles  of  Teaching,  p.  8^. 


754  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

velopment  followed  in  the  particular  directions.  A  given  por- 
tion of  the  brain  controlling  a  special  function  may  be  materially 
increased  in  development  without  much  affecting  other  parts. 
Certain  portions  unexercised  may  atrophy  without  causing  de- 
generation of  other  parts.  Again,  a  given  area  may  sometimes 
be  completely  excised  without  seriously  affecting  the  remain- 
ing portions.  Only  in  very  low  unspecialized  forms  may 
substitution  of  other  areas  take  place.  If  the  theory  of  general 
powers  were  true,  any  portion  of  the  brain  ought  to  be  able  to 
take  on  the  function  originally  controlled  by  the  part  destroyed. 
If  the  doctrine  of  general  powers  were  true,  it  would  be  incon- 
ceivable that  localization  and  specialization  should  ever  have 
taken  place.  Any  organ  ought,  according  to  that  theory,  to 
be  able  to  control  any  function,  and  an  undifferentiated,  homo- 
geneous structure  would  have  served  equally  as  well  as  the 
exceedingly  complex,  specialized  brain  which  we  possess. 
With  the  gradual  isolating,  insulating,  and  specializing  of  func- 
tions, however,  efficiency  has  arisen. 

On  the  other  hand,  biology  teaches  just  as  definitely  that 
each  organism  is  a  unity  and  that  any  influence  affecting  one 
structure  or  function  of  the  organism  will  have  some  influence 
upon  all  other  structures  and  functions  of  the  organism.  But 
there  are  all  degrees  of  interrelation  among  the  structures  and 
functions  of  the  same  unitary  organism.  Some  are  exceedingly 
close,  others  so  remote  that  two  organs  are  sometimes  almost 
as  distinct  as  if  belonging  to  different  individuals.  Conse- 
quently, if  two  structures  or  functions  are  very  intimately  re- 
lated, as  the  hand  and  the  arm,  or  logical  memory  and  good 
judgment,  the  exercise  of  the  one  is  certain  to  influence  the 
other  considerably.  But  if  the  two  are  very  remotely  connected, 
as  the  big  toe  and  the  ability  to  appreciate  musical  tones  or  colors, 
the  exercise  of  the  one  will  have  little  effect  upon  the  other— 
in  many  instances  so  little  as  to  be  practically  negligible.  To 
take  an  extreme  case  of  the  lack  of  transfer  of  pathological 
effects,  the  amputation  of  a  foot  probably  never  has  any  effect 
upon  sight  or  hearing.  Conversely,  the  effects  of  the  exer- 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  755 

cise  of  the  eye  or  the  foot  have  no  influence  upon  each  other. 
While  the  formal  school  arts  do  not  show  such  extreme  degrees 
of  remoteness,  are  there  not  very  great  differences  in  functions 
and  structures  involved  in  acquiring  such  arts  as  color  work 
and  grammatical  syntax,  or  as  rote  singing  and  cube  root? 
Are  the  differences  not  so  great  that  the  effect  of  learning  one 
would  be  of  almost  infinitesimal  aid  in  learning  the  other? 
It  is  certainly  manifest  that  if  we  wish  to  secure  improvement 
in  color  discrimination  or  the  multiplication  table,  the  process 
must  be  mainly  direct. 

Donaldson1  wrote:  "The  avowed  aim  of  certain  educational 
schemes  is  to  produce  a  rounded,  balanced  individual  as  an  out- 
come of  the  training  process,  a  psychological  result  comparable 
with  the  ideal  human  form  at  one  time  sought  in  sculpture. 
Since  conditions  of  life  on  the  globe  are  not  uniform,  and  since 
man  only  approaches  the  ideal  in  his  development  when  in  har- 
mony with  his  surroundings,  such  a  universal  ideal  is  as  fanciful 
as  was  the  notion  of  Goethe  concerning  the  'Urpflanze';  a 
sort  of  grandfather  of  all  the  plants  possessing  the  characters 
of  its  multiform  descendants,  yet  displaying  them  with  an 
ancestral  simplicity  worthy  of  the  golden  age  of  which  it  had 
formed  a  part.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  education  of  an  indi- 
vidual is  a  very  local  problem  in  its  details.  The  weak  points 
in  the  central  system  must  be  strengthened,  that  the  abilities 
given  by  the  strong  ones  may  be  guided  by  some  sort  of  bal- 
anced judgment.  But  the  balanced  and  judicial  states  are,  so 
far  as  they  go,  plainly  statical,  and  the  vigor  of  a  healthy  rest- 
lessness is  very  necessary  if  there  is  to  be  advance.  While 
growth  continues,  things  bodily  and  mental  are  lop-sided,  for 
growth  is  never  general,  but  accentuated,  now  at  one  spot,  now 
at  another.  But  this  very  unbalance,  if  only  it  be  the  outcome 
of  natural  endowment  and  not  of  a  priori  training,  gives  a  vigor 
not  otherwise  to  be  obtained.  The  history  of  the  normal  indi- 
vidual is  through  various  phases  of  unstable  equilibrium  and 
awkward  strength,  to  the  poise  and  quiescence  of  late  maturity, 

1  Growth  of  the  Brain,  p.  356 


756  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

yet  in  any  community  examples  of  all  these  phases  are  found  as 
terminal  states  in  both  old  and  young.  The  formal  methods, 
therefore,  which  shall  recognize,  in  the  presence  of  these  enor- 
mous differences  in  endowment,  the  dynamic  value  of  the 
natural  inequalities  of  growth,  and  utilize  them,  preferring  ir- 
regularity to  the  roundness  gained  by  pruning,  will  most  closely 
follow  that  which  takes  place  within  the  body,  and  thus  prove 
most  effective." 

Scientific  Conception  of  Mind. — "The  science  of  education 
should  at  once  rid  itself  of  its  conception  of  the  mind  as  a  sort 
of  machine,  different  parts  of  which  sense,  perceive,  discrimi- 
nate, imagine,  remember,  conceive,  associate,  reason  about, 
desire,  choose,  form  habits,  attend  to.  Such  a  conception  was 
adapted  to  the  uses  of  writers  of  books  on  general  method  and 
arguments  for  formal  discipline  and  barren  descriptive  psychol- 
ogies, but  such  a  mind  nowhere  exists.  There  is  no  power  of 
sense  discrimination  to  be  delicate  or  coarse,  no  capacity  for 
uniformly  feeling  accurately  the  physical  stimuli  of  the  outside 
world.  There  are  only  the  connections  between  separate  sense 
stimuli  and  our  separate  sensations  and  judgments  thereof, 
some  resulting  in  delicate  judgments  of  difference,  some  result- 
ing in  coarse.  There  is  no  memory  to  hold  in  a  uniformly  tight 
or  loose  grip  the  experiences  of  the  past.  There  are  only  the 
particular  connections  between  particular  mental  events  and 
others,  sometimes  resulting  in  great  surety  of  revival,  some- 
times in  little.  And  so  on  through  the  list.  Good  reasoning 
power  is  but  a  general  name  for  a  host  of  particular  capacities 
and  incapacities,  the  general  average  of  which  seems  to  the 
namer  to  be  above  the  general  average  in  other  individuals. 
Modern  psychology  has  sloughed  off  the  faculty  psychology  in 
its  descriptions  and  analyses  of  mental  life,  but  unfortunately 
reverts  customarily  to  it  when  dealing  with  dynamic  or  func- 
tional relationships."  1 

New  Conception  of  Discipline. — Discipline  in  reality  is  there- 
fore something  very  different  from  the  generalized  effects  which 

1  Thorndike,  Educational  Psychology,  p.  29. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  757 

it  is  popularly  supposed  to  be.  By  a  discipline  of  body  we 
mean  that  through  exercise  of  function  and  experience  of  a 
given  sort  a  tendency  or  potentiality  for  action  in  that  given 
direction  has  been  produced.  The  soldier  is  so  trained  that 
upon  hearing  the  auditory  stimulus,  "Attention!"  he  immedi- 
ately assumes  a  given  attitude.  "Present  arms!"  is  a  stimulus 
causing  immediate  muscular  responses  in  arms,  hands,  etc.  A 
skater  is  a  trained  skater  when  he  can  execute  with  facility 
various  muscular  movements  which  he  pictures  to  himself. 
One  is  a  trained  stenographer  when  upon  hearing  certain  sound 
symbols  the  muscles  of  the  hand  and  arm  immediately,  unhesi- 
tatingly, unerringly  fall  into  desired  ways  of  acting.  The  more 
reflex,  habitual,  and  automatic  the  foregoing  movements  have 
become,  the  better  trained,  or  in  other  words  the  better  disci- 
plined the  individual  is  in  these  directions. 

Correspondingly  the  mind  when  habituated  to  given  ways  of 
functioning  is  trained  or  disciplined  in  those  directions.  For 
example,  one  who  can  repeat  instantaneously  and  unerringly 
the  multiplication  table,  can  give  sight  translations,  sing  by 
note,  or  rapidly  think  out  mathematical  equations,  has  his  mind 
trained  to  function  in  those  ways  under  given  stimuli.  The 
most  effective  thinking  of  the  most  abstract  sort  is  accomplished 
best  when  most  of  the  processes  are  familiar  and  semi-automatic. 
The  physician  is  enabled  to  diagnose  disease  accurately  by 
merely  glancing  at  the  patient  or  possibly  on  hearing  of  a  single 
symptom  only  because  long  practice  has  linked  absolutely  in 
his  associative  processes  certain  external  signs  with  certain 
ideas.  We  marvel  when  the  great  financier  seems  possessed  of 
supernatural  powers  of  prevision  and  instantaneously  tells 
whether  a  given  investment  will  be  profitable  or  not.  But  he 
does  this  because  his  mind  has  been  trained  in  handling  certain 
data  and  has  become  habituated  to  certain  stereotyped  forms 
of  mental  functioning. 

Inasmuch  as  any  physical  work,  no  matter  how  complex,  is 
made  up  of  simple  elements,  it  also  follows  that  these  elements 
can  be  woven  into  manifold  new  combinations.  Whenever  a 


758  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

new  activity  involves  an  element  already  learned  that  part  of 
the  process  does  not  need  to  be  again  mastered.  However,  it 
must  be  recognized  that  not  only  the  element,  but  also  its  con- 
nections have  to  be  considered.  One  who  has  used  the  arm 
and  hand  in  a  variety  of  motions,  which  may  be  combined  in 
using  a  brace  and  bit,  a  plane,  a  chisel,  or  a  saw,  or  in  adjusting 
watches  has  not  therefore  mastered  carpentry  or  watch-making. 
If  he  has  good  general  control  of  the  hand  he  already  has  much 
capital  to  draw  upon.  But  if  the  new  process  is  an  absolutely 
novel  one  as  a  whole  and  also  in  its  elements  then  what  has 
been  learned  is  of  no  avail  in  the  new  direction. 

Similarly  with  mental  operations.  Almost  any  study  in- 
volves elements  that  have  been  mastered  in  other  connections. 
These  elements  are  immediately  serviceable.  For  example,  in 
beginning  the  study  of  percentage  it  is  found  that  the  subject 
is  mainly  a  combination  of  old  principles  and  processes  with 
only  a  slight  addition  of  new  ones.  Algebra  grows  right  out 
of  the  mathematical  ideas  gained  in  arithmetic;  and  calculus 
is  but  an  extension  and  recombination  of  arithmetic,  algebra, 
geometry,  and  trigonometry.  When  the  ordinary  child  begins 
geography,  mathematics,  Latin,  or  German  he  has  had  several 
years'  experience  in  reading  and  writing.  He  knows  the  use  of 
letters  and  symbols,  has  acquired  some  knowledge  of  language 
classification  and  rules.  He  has  in  fact  multitudes  of  elements 
as  capital  upon  which  he  should  immediately  draw.  Thus  all 
studies  are  in  a  way  related  and  to  that  extent  the  mastery  of 
one  helps  in  the  acquisition  of  others. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  combination  of  old,  and 
even  perfectly  familiar,  elements  is  a  difficult  matter  in  itself. 
Old  combinations  may  even  be  a  hindrance,  especially  if  too 
fixed.  Bad  habits  of  walking,  talking,  writing,  singing,  or 
thinking  are  harder  to  modify  than  new  ones  are  to  inculcate. 
In  percentage  all  one  has  to  do  is  to  apply  the  knowledge  of 
addition,  subtraction,  multiplication,  division,  and  fractions. 
"All?"  Yes.  But  ay,  there's  the  rub.  A  student  said  to  me 
once  before  commencing  the  study  of  the  science  of  education: 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  759 

"Why,  all  one  has  to  do  is  to  learn  psychology  and  then,  just 
apply  it."  "Yes,"  I  answered,  "that  is  all  you  have  to  do." 
Before  the  year  was  over  he  discovered  that  learning  to  just 
apply  it  was  a  task  not  inferior  in  difficulty  to  anything  he  had 
ever  undertaken. 

It  is  not  here  maintained  that  the  pursuit  of  a  given  subject 
can  have  no  value  in  the  study  of  another  subject  later  pursued. 
It  is  claimed  that  exercise  in  a  given  direction  produces  greater 
growth  of  the  special  powers  involved  than  in  any  other.  Most 
subjects  of  instruction  have  a  great  many  similar  elements.  As 
far  as  they  have  similar  elements  they  are  valuable  for  each 
other.  The  greater  the  number  of  identical  elements  in  the 
two,  the  greater  the  value.  Physics  has  a  great  many  points 
in  common  with  chemistry,  geology  with  zoology,  French  with 
Latin,  etc.  All  subjects  are  related  to  language  and  con- 
sequently language  illuminates  them  all.  But  when  we  select 
two  that  are  as  far  apart  as  typewriting  and  arithmetic,  or  as 
chemistry  and  Greek  art,  or  as  geology  and  dancing,  or  card- 
playing  and  Chinese,  it  is  certain  that  the  pursuit  of  one  does 
not  put  one  far  ahead  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  other. 
Would  a  doctor  of  philosophy  have  any  advantage  over  a  high- 
school  graduate  in  learning  stenography  or  music  ?  According 
to  the  theory  of  formal  discipline  the  years  of  study  on  thought 
problems  ought  to  have  increased  ability  in  gaining  the  technique 
of  music  and  typewriting — but  it  does  not. 

Effect  of  Ideals. — Next  in  value  to  the  elements  of  old  knowl- 
edge which  are  utilized  in  learning  new  things  there  are  certain 
ideals  and  attitudes  toward  work.  There  are  no  general  facul- 
ties of  attention,  memory,  and  reason,  which  attend,  memorize, 
and  reason  about  one  thing  as  well  as  another  by  simply  "con- 
necting them  up."  But  there  are  habits  of  attending  to  things, 
of  trying  to  memorize,  trying  to  reason;  in  short,  habits  of  striv- 
ing for  excellence,  which  are  no  mean  possession.  In  fact, 
oftentimes  the  ideals  of  excellence  and  of  application  to  duty  are 
among  the  most  valuable  assets  which  the  school-boy  acquires. 
But  he  acquires  these  on  the  farm,  in  the  store,  or  in  the  shop 


760  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

as  well  as  in  the  school — frequently  better.  It  depends  largely 
upon  the  kind  of  associates  he  has.  The  value  that  we  often 
so  erroneously  ascribe  to  a  given  subject  or  kind  of  work  is  more 
truthfully  a  benefit  with  which  our  parents,  teachers,  and  asso- 
ciates should  be  credited.  They  may  inculcate  a  desirable  attitude 
toward  all  work  which  is  of  immense  value  in  every  relation  in  life. 
Correlation  of  Physical  and  Mental  Effects. — There  are  some 
very  curious  attempts  to  get  one  kind  of  result  from  an  entirely 
different  form  of  training.  Among  the  latest  of  these  is  the 
assumption  that  we  are  teaching  morality  through  art  and 
athletics.  I  have  no  word  of  fault  with  art  or  athletics;  I  be- 
lieve in  both,  but  we  should  be  satisfied  with  developing  the 
aesthetic  sense  through  art  and  strong  bodies  primarily  through 
physical  culture.  Were  morality  a  necessary  function  of  art, 
Greece  in  her  highest  development  of  art  would  not  have  been 
the  most  corrupt  in  morals.  Were  morality  a  necessary  func- 
tion of  physical  development  we  should  find  among  savages 
many  of  the  highest  types  of  morality.  To  confirm  the  view  that 
they  are  not  necessary  correlatives  we  would  need  only  to  men- 
tion a  recent  noble  writer  who  was  a  poor  hunchback  and  a 
sickly  dwarf,  and  compare  his  morality  with  that  of  his  brother, 
a  champion  athlete  and  a  cowardly  assassin.  The  former  a 
hero,  the  latter  a  violator  of  nearly  every  command  in  the 
decalogue.  The  greatest  hero  on  the  foot-ball  field  may  be  the 
first  to  quail  on  facing  an  audience,  he  may  be  one  of  the  first 
to  cheat  in  an  examination,  or  to  commit  a  crime.  Should  he 
sin  his  physical  culture  is  not  the  cause.  Athletics  and  honesty 
are  not  in  any  way  necessarily  related.  I  heard  a  foot-ball  en- 
thusiast argue  at  the  National  Educational  Association  that 
foot-ball  develops  those  qualities  which  make  men  always  co- 
operate in  every  enterprise.  Now,  he  could  equally  well  have 
said  that  in  foot-ball  the  spirit  of  cornering  the  markets  and 
forming  coal  trusts  is  developed.  Foot-ball  is  a  game  of  co- 
operation— for  each  side — but  how  about  altruism  toward  the 
opponents?  All  of  the  arguments  here  criticised  are  absolutely 
inapplicable. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  761 

The  Relation  Between  Knowledge  and  Power. — The  phrase 
mental  power  has  been  very  inaccurately  used  in  pedagogics. 
It  is  continually  discussed  from  the  platform  and  in  the  columns 
of  educational  magazines  in  a  very  indefinite  and  very  erroneous 
way.  In  the  discussions  the  term  knowledge  is  usually  coupled 
with  it  and  is  apologetically  if  not  contemptuously  referred  to 
when  compared  with  the  term  power.  The  term  knowledge 
generally  fares  badly,  is  made  to  represent  something  appar- 
ently despicable,  and  is  entirely  outclassed  by  the  term  power. 
"Mere  knowledge"  is  the  current  phrase  which  is  made  to  do 
duty  in  exalting  power  and  in  minifying  the  significance  of  the 
possession  of  knowledge. 

The  truth  of  the  old  adage  that  "knowledge  is  power"  seems 
to  be  sadly  discredited  by  many  who  love  to  discourse  in  glitter- 
ing generalities.  But  are  the  two  terms  mutually  exclusive  and 
incompatible  or  should  the  adage  be  raised  into  a  higher  signifi- 
cance than  ever  before  ?  Power,  in  physics,  for  example,  means 
the  ability  to  act  or  the  capability  of  producing  an  effect,  the 
capacity  of  undergoing  or  suffering  change.  It  also  means  sus- 
ceptibility of  acting  or  of  being  acted  upon.  Now  power  may 
be  regarded  as  latent  or  inherent  or  as  that  which  is  put  forth 
or  exerted.  That  is,  power  is  either  active  or  passive.  Ac- 
cording to  Sir  William  Hamilton:  "Power  is,  therefore,  a  word 
which  we  may  use  both  in  an  active  and  passive  signification; 
and  in  psychology  we  may  apply  it  both  to  the  active  faculty  and 
to  the  passive  capacity  of  the  mind."  And  again  he  says: 
"Power,  then,  is  active  and  passive;  faculty  is  active  power  or 
capacity;  capacity  is  passive  power." 

The  passive  or,  perhaps  better,  the  latent  or  potential  aspect 
seems  to  have  been  largely  lost  sight  of  by  writers  on  pedagogy. 
Let  us  again  examine  the  various  kinds  of  power  which  are  the 
necessary  antecedents  of  mental  power  and  also  examine  the 
various  phases  of  mental  power.  The  individual  begins  life 
with  the  ability  to  receive  sense  impressions  of  the  objective 
world  about  him.  This  is  power— the  power  to  receive  im- 
pressions. It  is  partly  physical,  partly  physiological,  partly 


762  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

psychical;  in  the  earliest  days  largely  physical  and  physiological. 
That  is,  his  sense  organs  are  so  constructed  as  to  admit  of  being 
acted  upon  by  certain  physical  or  chemical  forces,  and  his 
nervous  mechanism  is  so  developed  that  the  stimuli  send  cur- 
rents of  nervous  energy  to  the  brain  cortex.  If  these  stimuli  are 
experienced  as  sensations  or  as  perceptions  there  is  manifested 
mental  power.  Preceding  the  reception  of  the  sensation  there 
must  have  been  passive  or  latent  power  of  sensation  and  in 
experiencing  the  sensation  or  perception  there  was  manifested 
the  active  power.  All  animals  (and  some  say  plants)  possess 
the  mere  sensitivity  to  impressions.  This  power  is  mainly 
physiological,  but  the  interpretation  of  the  data  gained  is  psy- 
chical. Even  as  soon  as  there  is  consciousness  of  the  data 
furnished  by  physical  and  physiological  processes  there  is  psy- 
chic life.  It  probably  antedates  even  that.  Now,  this  simplest 
and  most  elemental  power  is  hereditary.  And  the  higher  the 
organism  in  the  scale  of  life  the  greater  the  initial  passive  power. 
This  signifies  that  through  the  multiplication  of  ancestral  ex- 
periences in  receiving  impressions  the  potential  capacity  for 
receiving  impressions  has  been  increased  for  posterity.  Thus 
far  our  investigation  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that  passive 
power  for  receiving  impressions  of  the  external  world  has  been 
directly  modified  and  produced  by  receiving  those  impressions, 
i.  e.,  by  getting  knowledge.  This  permits  us  to  say,  at  least, 
that  knowledge  gained  produces  power.  Guyau  said  of  power1 
that  "It  is  a  pre-established  constitutional  adaptation,  an  apti- 
tude ready  to  be  awakened  and  translated  into  actions.  .  .  . 
Power  is  therefore  nothing  but  a  kind  of  residuum  left  by  past 
actions  and  reactions." 

Next  let  us  investigate  the  meaning  of  knowledge.  Accord- 
ing to  Webster,  knowledge  is  that  which  is  known,  that  which 
is  preserved  by  knowing,  or  that  familiarity  which  is  gained  by 
actual  experience.  He  also  says  that  it  is  practical  skill,  as,  for 
example,  a  knowledge  of  seamanship.  From  the  science  of 
neurology  we  know  that  whenever  any  stimulus  acts  upon  a 

1  Education  and  Heredity,  p.  47. 


GENERAL  DISCIPLINE  763 

sense-organ  a  wave  of  nervous  impulse  is  transmitted  to  some 
central  part  of  the  nervous  system  and  there  it  effects  a  change 
in  the  structure  of  the  nervous  tissue.  Every  psychosis  has 
its  corresponding  neurosis.  From  the  physiological  side  this 
modified  neural  structure  represents  the  knowledge  obtained 
and  retained.  Upon  the  recurrence  of  a  similar  stimulus  a  simi- 
lar neural  change  will  take  place  which  is  interpreted  by  the  mind 
as  a  similar  sensation  or  perception.  From  the  psychical  side  we 
know  not  how  nor  in  what  form  experiences  are  stored,  in  fact  we 
do  not  believe  they  are  stored  at  all,  but  that  all  mental  ex- 
periences perish  in  the  process  of  being  experienced.  What  recurs 
is  a  new  combination  of  processes,  similar  to,  yet  different  from, 
any  preceding  ones.  But  the  psycho-physiological  basis  is  well 
established.  The  neural  modifications  are  retained  ready  to 
be  reawakened  by  proper  stimuli.  We  may  speak  of  the  ideas 
existing  in  the  mind  in  this  potential  state  without  being  called 
upon  to  explain  how  or  in  what  form  they  are  retained.  The 
mind  simply  has  the  power,  the  possibility,  and  the  tendency 
of  working  again  the  same  way  under  conditions  similar  to 
those  which  determined  the  first  existence  of  given  experiences. 
Now,  these  physiological  modifications  and  the  corresponding 
mental  modifications  were  produced  by  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  Thus  there  is  the  acquisition  of  power,  at  least 
the  power  of  reproducing  and  re-experiencing  the  same  or 
similar  states  of  consciousness.  If  we  turn  to  the  doctrine  of 
apperception  we  also  find  substantiation  of  the  view  that  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge  gives  power  which  determines  the 
character  of  future  acquisitions.  The  statement  that  new  knowl- 
edge is  interpreted  in  the  light  of  that  which  is  already  in  the 
mind  indicates  that  knowledge  gives  us  not  only  the  power  of 
reproduction  of  previous  knowledge,  /.  e.,  the  power  of  memory, 
but  also  determines  the  power  of  acquisition.  When  appercep- 
tion is  defined  from  the  physiological  view-point  these  argu- 
ments receive  reinforcement.  We  recall  that  an  apperception 
is  a  perception  whose  character  is  determined  not  by  the  nature 
of  the  thing  perceived  but  by  the  peculiar  tendencies  of  the 


764  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

nervous  system.  Since  the  mind  has  been  modified  and  has 
developed  power  through  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  or  in 
establishing  relations  among  items  of  knowledge,  it  seems  clear 
that  one  way  at  least  of  increasing  power  is  through  the  acqui- 
sition of  knowledge. 

The  conception  of  various  powers  in  the  abstract  must  be 
relegated  to  the  limbo  of  outgrown  notions  along  with  the 
doctrine  of  "faculties"  in  the  abstract.  A  faculty  considered 
as  an  active  characteristic  is  simply  the  sum  total  of  experi- 
ences of  a  given  class,  while  viewed  from  the  passive  stand-point 
— that  of  possibilities  or  power — it  represents  the  existing  com- 
plex modifications  resulting  from  the  summation  of  all  the 
previous  experiences.  Hence  we  may  assert  that  in  order  to 
cultivate  and  increase  power  we  should  not  concern  ourselves 
with  the  cultivation  of  power  in  the  abstract  and  in  general, 
but  with  the  cultivation  of  some  specific  power.  To  illustrate, 
we  have  demonstrated  that  the  culture  of  the  memory  in  a 
given  direction  does  not  improve  the  memory  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent direction.  Without  doubt,  wherever  there  are  common 
elements  involved  and  common  processes  pursued  in  mem- 
orizing quite  different  facts  there  may  be  some  gain.  But  it  is 
very  questionable  whether  practice  in  learning  poetry  will  aid 
in  remembering  columns  of  figures,  sets  of  nonsense  syllables, 
or  the  names  of  chemical  compounds.  Whatever  has  once  been 
committed  to  memory,  although  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
entirely  forgotten,  may  be  learned  more  easily  the  second  time. 
This  demonstrates  the  assumption  that  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge,  though  the  facts  are  forgotten,  leaves  as  a  residuum 
a  certain  potentiality  or  power  which  may  be  turned  to  account 
in  the  acquisition  of  the  same  or  similar  knowledge.  The 
doctrine  of  apperception,  as  has  been  shown,  teaches  that  knowl- 
edge once  acquired  aids  in  the  interpretation  of  all  new  knowl- 
edge, i.  e.,  aids  in  comparing,  discriminating,  identifying, 
judging,  generalizing,  reasoning  about  the  new  facts.  Thus  the 
acquisition  of  given  facts  has  increased  the  power  of  memoriz- 
ing the  same  kinds  of  facts;  it  has  increased  the  habits  of  com- 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  765 

paring,  discriminating,  methods  of  reasoning,  and  has  increased 
the  power  of  judging  and  generalizing  with  reference  to  sim- 
ilar classes  of  facts.  Aside  from  the  critical  attitudes  and 
habits  of  mind  engendered  it  has  not  changed  the  power  of 
judging  or  reasoning  about  other  entirely  separate  classes  of 
facts.  For  example,  practice  in  forming  judgments  concerning 
minerals  will  probably  aid  little  in  judging  in  a  law  court. 

One  writer  says:  "If  my  mind  were  a  tablet,  and  with  a 
sponge  I  should  erase  every  fact  learned  in  school  and  college, 
and  not  directly  applied  in  the  arts  there  acquired,  I  should  not 
be  very  poor;  but  were  I  to  lose  the  mental  power  gained  by  the 
mastery  of  these  facts,  so  many  of  which  were  long  since  forgot- 
ten, I  should  be  poor  indeed."  Such  reasoning  is  very  fallacious 
and  even  pernicious  in  its  effects.  The  assumption  that  power 
and  knowledge  are  in  no  way  vitally  related  has  led  to  the  under- 
valuation of  knowledge  and  even  to  a  contempt — especially  by 
those  who  have  limited  amounts  of  it.  This  doctrine  is  preached 
to  students  and  they  are  led  to  believe  that  power  will  in  some 
mysterious  way  come  to  them  and  thus  a  contempt  for  learning 
is  gained.  While  I  am  not  exalting  erudition  at  the  expense 
of  real  knowledge  and  wisdom,  yet  I  would  maintain  that  facts 
are  basal.  Before  relations  among  facts  can  be  established, 
i.  e.,  before  reason  and  judgment  can  have  sway,  there  must  be 
facts  among  which  to  establish  relations. 

The  fallacy  of  the  foregoing  quotation  rests  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  knowledge  might  be  lost  and  power  retained.  When- 
ever we  receive  a  fact,  from  the  physiological  side  certain  neural 
tracts  are  modified.  If  the  fact  is  dwelt  on  long  enough  to 
make  a  definite  impression  the  modification  becomes  a  perma- 
nent part  of  the  nervous  structure.  The  modification,  it  is 
true,  may  itself  be  modified  by  later  impressions,  but  the  brain 
can  never  return  to  its  original  condition.  Facts  are  just  as 
truly  retained  as  received.  Knowledge  is  no  less  really  retained 
than  is  power.  The  brain  is  different  in  potentiality  for  having 
received  any  impression.  So  the  mind  as  a  whole,  after  re- 
ceiving any  impression,  is  different  from  what  it  was  before 


766  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

receiving  the  stimulus.  We  may  not  be  able  to  recall  the  given 
fact  in  the  same  way  that  it  was  received,  but  new  ideas  will  all 
be  different  because  of  every  preceding  fact  acquired.  The 
mind  at  any  given  time  is  the  resultant  of  all  the  forces  that  have 
acted  upon  it.  These  forces  consist  of  heredity,  environment, 
and  the  individual's  own  self -activity.  We  view  the  world 
through  glasses  colored  by  all  the  experiences  of  both  ourselves 
and  our  ancestors. 

It  is  not  to  be  maintained  that  the  acquisition  or  collection  of 
isolated  facts  will  give  the  highest  sort  of  power.  The  higher 
powers  of  comparison,  discrimination,  and  judgment  come  from 
the  establishment  of  relations  among  the  elemental  facts.  But 
since  all  power  is  special,  the  higher  types  of  power,  it  must  be 
conceded,  are  dependent  upon  the  lower. 

Probably  feeling  and  will  are  in  their  last  analysis  as  inde- 
pendent as  intellectual  states,  yet  each  of  these  phases  of  mental- 
ity is  influenced  by  and  dependent  upon  knowledge.  The  higher 
sentiments  and  the  higher  volitional  states  are  manifestly  the 
outgrowth  of  the  education  of  intellectual  states.  Inquire  into 
the  evolution  of  the  appreciation  of  classic  music  or  the  strong 
will  impelling  one  to  lay  down  his  life  for  the  right  and  it  will 
be  seen  readily  that  the  feelings  and  the  will  have  not  developed 
independently.  Of  course  the  effects  of  exercise  and  habit  are 
not  overlooked,  but  intelligent  direction  only  has  been  able  to 
produce  the  habits.  Thus  we  have  shown  that  every  phase  of 
power  can  be  traced  for  its  elemental  phases  to  the  effects  of 
knowing — and  knowing  is  dependent  upon  facts.  From  the 
foregoing  we  should  learn  not  to  despise  facts.  The  idea  of 
"learning  to  do  by  doing"  must  be  complemented  by  that  of 
"learning  to  do  by  knowing."  We  should  not  despise  facts,  for 
it  is  through  the  acquisition  of  facts  that  power  has  evolved. 
Should  we  wish  to  increase  intellectua/  power,  one  of  the  basal 
things  to  do  would  be  to  secure  knowledge,  either  elemental  or 
relational.  Even  if  we  wish  to  increase  affective  or  volitional 
power,  the  best  and  only  way  is  to  base  the  growth  of  these 
phases  of  mentality  upon  intelligent  knowing. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  767 

Importance  of  Content  of  Study. — The  doctrine  which  main* 
tains  that  power  is  gained  through  exercise  alone  and  that 
powers  are  entirely  general  rather  than  largely  special,  must  log- 
ically maintain  that  it  makes  little  difference  as  to  what  kind 
of  fact  is  assimilated  if  only  we  keep  up  the  mental  gymnas- 
tics. I  hold  that  it  does  make  much  difference  what  kind  of 
knowledge  is  gained.  To  hold  the  contrary  is  to  imperil  the 
whole  theory  of  moral  growth.  It  makes  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  what  knowledge  our  boys  and  girls  receive.  Their 
feelings  are  aroused  by  knowledge  and  their  activities  often 
determined  directly  by  the  facts  they  learn. 

Even  from  the  side  of  the  intellect  it  makes  much  difference. 
Were  mental  gymnastics  the  only  requisite  of  intellectual  growth, 
we  might  separate  a  child  from  his  fellows,  set  him  to  playing 
checkers  or  chess,  or  learning  Russian  or  Choctaw,  and  then  he 
would  be  fitted  for  society,  be  capable  of  judging  of  human 
actions  as  well  as  though  he  had  come  in  contact  with  objective 
facts  dealing  with  society  and  human  activities. 

Subjects  Should  Appeal  as  Worth  While. — Why  should  sub- 
jects be  studied  if  not  for  the  intellectual  gymnastics?  We 
may  ask  a  similar  question  about  physical  work.  We  can  easily 
find  good  and  sufficient  reasons  for  doing  physical  and  intel- 
lectual work  without  appealing  to  the  theory  of  formal  discipline. 
The  work  should  be  worth  doing.  If  not  it  should  be  left  un- 
done. The  worthfulness  of  the  ends  secured  through  labor 
have  been  the  dominating  motives  of  all  human  work.  No  one 
normally  goes  through  a  treadmill  existence  for  the  sake  of 
doing  the  treading.  In  adult  life  one  does  not  do  intellectual 
work  for  the  sake  of  the  exercise.  When  we  plan  buildings, 
lay  out  our  political  campaigns,  develop  war  policies,  or  write 
books,  we  do  not  do  so  for  the  sake  of  the  practice.  The  ends 
must  appeal  to  us  as  being  worth  while  in  themselves.  It  may 
be  that  in  executing  a  given  kind  of  work  we  develop  added 
power  for  similar  kinds  of  work,  but  even  that  kind  of  motive 
would  not  keep  us  long  at  our  task.  The  end  to  be  accom- 
plished must  be  the  magnet  which  draws  us  irresistibly  on. 


768  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

The  case  is  similar  with  children's  activities.  Normally  they 
engage  in  all  sorts  of  exercises  for  the  sake  of  the  end.  Play  has 
been  defined  as  exercise  which  is  careless  of  the  ends  to  be  se- 
cured. This  is  a  false  interpretation.  Play  not  ruled  by 
entrancing  ends  to  be  accomplished  ceases  to  be  play.  True, 
when  ends  are  accomplished  new  objects  are  at  once  conceived 
as  worthful  and  new  plays  engaged  in.  But  play  in  which  the 
end  does  not  lure  the  child  on,  becomes,  like  too  much  of  his 
arithmetic  and  writing,  mere  drudgery.  In  these  the  objects 
are  not  understood  or  appreciated  and  hence  are  distasteful. 

The  implication  intended  is  that  subjects  should  be  studied 
because  they  are  intrinsically  valuable;  because  the  possession 
of  a  knowledge  of  them  is  distinctly  worth  while.  One  of  the 
highest  arts  of  the  pedagogue  is  to  make  the  pupil  see  and  ap- 
preciate these  values  and  consequently  to  be  so  attracted  by  the 
acquisition  that  he  is  unsatisfied  without  them.  Too  much 
work  is  done  without  this  attractiveness  and  consequently  the 
work  is  mere  drudgery  and  worth  little  when  compared  with 
that  done  under  the  white  heat  of  interest.  The  boy  should 
study  arithmetic,  not  because  he  is  to  gain  mental  muscle  for 
the  practice  of  law  or  politics,  but  because  the  arithmetic  is  an 
indispensable  thing  for  him  to  know.  He  ought  to  be  led  to 
appreciate  this,  and  can  be  under  skilful  guidance.  He  ought 
to  study  Latin  because  the  Latin  has  intrinsic  value.  Grammar 
ought  to  be  studied  not  for  the  gymnastics  afforded,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  grammar.  If  the  disciplinarian's  propositions  were 
true  then  the  kind  of  arithmetic  and  grammar  would  be  imma- 
terial. The  most  antiquated  cases  in  arithmetic,  and  the  most 
obsolete  grammatical  forms  would  serve  just  as  well  as  modern 
subject-matter.  The  elimination  of  archaic  cases  of  "  tare  and 
trett,"  "alligation  medial,"  the  dropping  of  antiquated  number 
forms  and  the  substitution  of  modern,  down-to-date  terms 
would  be  a  bootless  task  if  the  theory  of  formal  discipline  were 
true.  The  text-books  on  geography,  arithmetic,  and  grammar 
01  our  grandfathers  would  do  just  as  well  as  those  containing 
more  modern  information  if  gymnastics  were  all  that  is  required 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  769 

The  formalist  is  apt  to  say  that  discipline  for  power  is  the 
object  of  all  study,  that  the  facts  learned  are  forgotten  anyway, 
that  it  makes  little  difference  what  one  studies  provided  only 
that  he  studies  hard  (and  pursues  the  formalist's  favorite 
studies!). 

President  David  Starr  Jordan,  in  his  cogent  article  upon 
"The  High  School  of  the  Twentieth  Century,"  l  makes  the  fol- 
lowing timely  remarks:  "There  is  needed  in  high-school  and 
other  educational  practice  a  scientific  examination  of  what  is 
meant  by  'mental  discipline.'  Much  of  our  educational  prac- 
tice at  present  rests  on  the  tacit  theory  that  when  the  child  is 
obliged  to  exert  himself  strenuously  in  a  limited  field,  he  there- 
by acquires  power  in  all  fields.  For  generations  it  has  been 
believed  that  the  pupil  who  drilled  on  Euclid  had  his  '  reason- 
ing powers'  so  developed  that  they  would  be  serviceable  in  any 
field  demanding  reasoning.  So  Latin  is  justified  largely  because 
it  encourages  linguistic  and  other  forms  of  exactness.  This 
doctrine,  which  underlies  so  much  of  the  traditional  curriculum 
of  the  high-school  and  early  college  years,  has  so  Hale  support 
from  common-sense  and  psychology*  that  the  coming  adminis- 
tration of  the  high  school  will  be  obliged  to  examine  it  very 
critically.  In  view  of  the  uncertainty  last  mentioned,  many 
educators  are  inclining  to  believe  that  the  best  material  for  the 
high-school  curriculum  is  that  which  makes  a  direct  appeal  to 
the  pupil  as  being  worth  while,  and  which  is  taken  by  the  pupil 
because  it  is  felt  to  be  worth  while." 

Purpose  of  the  Course  of  Study. — A  critical  consideration  of 
formal  discipline  leads  to  some  very  important  conclusions  con- 
cerning the  purposes  and  arrangement  of  a  course  of  study. 

(1)  Education  is  a  process  of  adjustment  of  the  individual  and 
the  race  to  varying  situations  to  secure  their  highest  welfare. 

(2)  Particular  adjustments  demand  particular  experiences  which 
cannot  be  furnished  by  any  sort  of  general  gymnastics.     (3) 
Therefore,  each  type  of  adjustment  must  be  secured  through 
special  appropriate  forms  of  experience.     (4)  As  life  is  so  com- 

1  School  Review,  12  :  547.  2  Italics  mine. 


770  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

plex,  a  great  range  of  experiences  is  demanded  to  fortify  the 
individual  for  his  multiform  situations.  (5)  The  curriculum 
should  represent  prevised  or  preparatory  experiences  as  well 
as  permanent  life  experiences  and  hence  must  be  varied.  If 
limited  in  scope  it  denies  experiences  necessary  for  the  varied 
development  of  each  individual,  and  also  fails  to  provide  equally 
for  all.  (6)  It  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  education 
of  the  human  race  which  produced  the  high  degree  of  develop- 
ment which  it  now  possesses  was  nearly  all  secured  before  schools 
and  formal  studies  were  invented  or  arranged.  (7)  Racial  ed- 
ucation was  nearly  all  gained  through  intensely  practical  and 
utilitarian  means.  Brain  development  and  sharp  wits  were 
secured  through  the  primal  arts  of  maintaining  existence,  pro- 
viding food,  shelter,  and  raiment,  securing  pleasure,  guarding 
against  pain,  and  providing  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species. 
(8)  In  our  scheme  of  education  we  must  not  forget  the  basal 
primitive  means  of  culture.  Schools  and  the  formal  school  arts 
are  not  absolutely  necessary.  We  are  told  that  the  educated 
Greek  of  the  Homeric  period  frequently  did  not  know  how  to  read 
and  write.  It  was  sufficient  that  the  ignorant  slaves  possessed 
these  almost  superfluous  accessories.  (9)  My  meaning  is  now, 
I  trust,  clearly  apparent.  All  school  arts  should  be  developed 
out  of  life's  pursuits  and  in  turn  contribute  to  the  better  accom- 
plishment of  these  activities.  This  is,  I  believe,  precisely  what 
Dewey  means  by  urging  the  conception  that  education  u  life 
and  life  is  education.  Any  arrangement  of  school  curricula 
which  fails  to  recognize  these  fundamental  relations  will  fail 
to  attract  individuals  and  will  fail  to  gain  community  support. 
The  community  and  the  individuals  composing  it — pupils  in 
school  included — seek  first  the  satisfaction  of  the  primal  in- 
stincts. The  boy  who  demands  to  know  what  use  geometry 
will  be  is  obeying  the  laws  of  nature  no  less  than  the  falling  ball 
obeys  the  law  of  gravitation. 

According  to  the  extreme  interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of 
formal  discipline,  it  would  make  little  difference  as  to  the  con- 
tent of  the  curriculum.  All  studies  would  be  of  equal  value 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  771 

if  equally  difficult.  Difficulties,  drill,  and  drudgery  seem  to  be 
the  only  qualities  desired.  The  subject  is  regarded  as  a  sort 
of  mental  grindstone  upon  which  the  wits  of  learners  are  to  be 
sharpened;  and  the  harder,  flintier,  and  more  disagreeable  it 
can  be  made  the  more  efficient  instrument  it  is  supposed  to 
prove.  The  boy  is  told,  when  objecting  that  he  has  no  taste 
for  a  subject,  that  it  is  the  very  one  for  him  to  take.  Anything 
in  which  he  has  an  interest  must  be  shunned  as  the  plague. 

But,  in  truth,  if  the  emotions,  for  example,  are  to  be  properly 
developed  the  mind  must  be  occupied  with  ideas  which  arouse 
the  emotions.  How  can  the  emotion  of  patriotism  be  aroused 
except  through  ideas  which  deal  with  fidelity,  loyalty,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  fraternal  spirit  ?  How  can  sympathy  be  awak- 
ened without  knowledge  of  the  feelings  of  joy,  sorrow,  sadness, 
despondency,  etc.  ?  These  can  only  be  gained  by  witnessing 
them  in  others  and  experiencing  them  ourselves.  No  purely 
intellectual  consideration  alone  can  bring  into  life  the  deepest 
emotions.  Emotional  experience  is  an  absolute  condition  of 
development.  Arithmetic  will  not  do  it,  geometry  will  not  do 
it,  linguistic  drill  fails,  manual  training  fails,  all  fail  except  that 
which  touches  the  germinal  life  of  the  emotions  and  adds  to  their 
potentialities.  Darwin  tells  us  that  his  later  life  was  full  of 
regret  that  he  had  no  interest  in  music  and  art.  The  aesthetic 
failed  completely  to  find  response  in  him.  He  ascribes  as  a 
cause  the  excessive  devotion  through  a  long  life  to  purely  intel- 
lectual pursuits.  His  mind  had  become  unsymmetrical  by  the 
hyperactivity  in  certain  directions  and  the  absence  of  exercise 
in  others. 

We  rightly  say  that  ethical  growth  and  culture  are  the  highest 
ends  of  education.  But  in  practice  we  ignore  all  laws  for  the 
attainment  of  these  ends  by  centring  the  main  current  of  the 
child's  school  life  upon  purely  intellectual  activities.  We 
profess  to  be  deeply  concerned  lest  the  child  wander  from  the 
paths  of  rectitude,  but  instead  of  pre-empting  his  mind  with  high 
ideals  such  as  could  be  gathered  from  literature  and  history  we 
cause  him  to  spend  most  of  his  school  life  in  learning  rules  of 


772  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

mathematics  and  language  and  acquiring  some  degree  of  dex- 
terity in  handling  their  forms  and  formulae.  Now,  arithmetic 
touches  a  great  many  rules,  but  nowhere  in  it  could  I  ever  dis- 
cover the  "Golden  Rule."  No,  the  only  way  in  which  one 
could  learn  to  do  unto  others  as  he  would  be  done  by  is  by 
associating  with  others  and  learning  the  meaning  of  altruism. 
This  can  be  done  partly  through  the  living  contact  and  partly 
through  subjects  which  deal  with  similar  situations.  If  moral 
growth  is  to  be  secured,  instruction  must  have  a  moral  content 
and  the  child  must  be  exercised  in  dealing  with  situations  in- 
volving moral  activities,  and  in  a  higher  stage  his  moral  judg- 
ment must  be  appealed  to. 

If  we  wish  to  secure  development  in  any  direction,  specific 
exercise  and  nourishment  must  be  secured  in  that  direction. 
If  many-sided  development  is  to  be  produced,  manifold  exer- 
cise and  nourishment  must  enter  into  the  course  of  education. 
To  stint  in  any  direction  is  to  dwarf  growth  in  that  particular, 
to  overemphasize  in  a  given  direction  is  to  produce  abnormality 
or  arrest  of  development.  Excessive  culture  of  physical  powers 
and  disregard  for  the  intellectual  and  moral  growth  produces 
the  brute;  excessive  intellectual  culture  alone  develops  the 
logician;  while  excessive  cultivation  of  the  emotions  without 
due  balance  in  other  qualities  produces  sickly  sentimentalism 
with  blind,  ungovernable  passion. 

Prejudices  Through  Doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas. — I  believe  that 
much  energy  has  been  misapplied  in  education  because  of  the 
fallacious  notion  regarding  the  nature  of  mind.  So  long  as  the 
old  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  is  held  in  any  form  (though  dis- 
guised so  as  to  be  hardly  recognizable)  a  wrong  view  of  education 
must  ensue.  According  to  that  theory  the  mind  is  preformed 
with  all  its  possibilities  foreordained  and  the  business  of  any 
educator,  says  Socrates  and  so  says  the  Middle-Age  philosopher, 
is  to  draw  forth  by  exercise,  by  gymnastics  to  develop  these  ideas 
and  bring  them  to  maturity.  In  physical  development  the  same 
theory  was  acted  upon.  Exercise,  the  trainers  said,  is  the  srie 
qua  non  for  physical  development.  The  strength  is. there,  it 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  773 

needs  only  training  to  make  it  manifest.  While  partly  true, 
still  another  indispensable  factor  is  only  just  beginning  to  be 
recognized.  The  modern  trainer  not  only  provides  gymnastics, 
but  a  training  table  as  well.  The  general  disciplinarians  sim- 
ply added  the  unwarranted  idea  that  not  only  is  strength  gained 
by  the  exercise,  but  it  becomes  perfectly  diffused  or  generalized. 

Corrective  Through  Doctrine  of  Apperception.  —  Now,  the 
mind  also  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on.  The  mind  is  a  functional 
product  of  all  its  past  experiences.  It  cannot  exercise  on 
nothing.  It  is  only  exercised  when  dealing  with  facts.  It 
grows  only  as  experiences  accumulate.  To  chew  sole  leather 
would  furnish  exercise,  but  little  nutriment.  Mental  gymnas- 
tics upon  valueless  material  is  equally  inane. 

The  apperception  theory  of  the  mind,  first  formulated  by 
Herbart,  changes  the  whole  point  of  view  of  instruction  and 
education.  According  to  this  theory  the  mind  can  grow  in  a 
given  direction,  only  through  experience  received  in  that  direc- 
tion. Vague  and  general  gymnastics  cannot  develop  the  mind 
because  it  can  only  lay  hold  of  those  new  experiences  for  which 
former  experiences  have  fitted  it.  According  to  this  theory,  we 
cannot  develop  the  sight  without  seeing,  the  hearing  without 
hearing,  the  emotions  without  feeling.  The  subject-matter  then 
becomes  of  great  moment.  It  must  have  desirable  content,  and 
not  be  mere  form;  must  nourish,  not  merely  discipline.  To 
teach  a  boy  to  think  he  must  have  something  to  think  about. 
No  formal  logic  can  ever  make  a  thinker.  The  mind  must 
have  facts  to  compare. 

Dr.  Dewey  wrote:  "No  number  of  object-lessons,  got  up  as 
object-lessons  for  the  sake  of  giving  information,  can  afford 
even  the  shadow  of  a  substitute  for  acquaintance  with  the 
plants  and  animals  of  the  farm  and  garden,  acquired  through 
actual  living  among  them  and  caring  for  them.  No  training 
of  sense-organs  in  school,  introduced  for  the  sake  of  training, 
can  begin  to  compete  with  the  alertness  and  fulness  of  sense- 
life  that  comes  through  daily  intimacy  and  interest  in  familiar 
occupations.  Verbal  memory  can  be  trained  in  committing 


774  PRINCIPLES   OF  EDUCATION 

tasks,  a  certain  discipline  of  the  reasoning  powers  can  be  ac- 
quired through  lessons  in  science  and  mathematics;  but,  after 
all,  this  is  somewhat  remote  and  shadowy  compared  with  the 
training  of  attention  and  of  judgment  that  is  acquired  in  having 
to  do  things  with  a  real  motive  behind  and  a  real  outcome 
ahead."  l 

Dr.  Albion  W.  Small  wrote:2  "Sociology  has  no  tolerance, 
however,  for  the  pedantry  that  persists  in  carpentering  together 
educational  courses  out  of  subjects  which  are  supposed  to  exer- 
cise, first,  the  perceptive  faculty,  then  the  memory,  then  the 
language  faculty,  then  the  logical  faculty,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  On 
the  contrary,  every  represented  contact  of  a  person  with  a  portion 
of  reality  sooner  or  later  calls  into  exercise  every  mental  power 
of  that  person,  probably  in  a  more  rational  order  and  proportion 
than  can  be  produced  by  an  artificial  process.  Our  business  as 
teachers  is  primarily,  therefore,  not  to  train  particular  mental 
powers,  but  to  select  points  of  contact  between  learning  minds 
and  the  reality  that  is  to  be  learned.  The  mind's  own  autonomy 
will  look  out  for  the  appropriate  series  of  subjective  mental 
processes."  Hall  wrote:3  "Although  pedagogues  make  vast 
claims  for  the  moralizing  effect  of  schooling,  I  cannot  find  a 
single  criminologist  who  is  satisfied  with  the  modern  school, 
while  most  bring  the  severest  indictments  against  it  for  the  blind 
and  ignorant  assumption  that  the  three  R's  or  any  merely  intel- 
lectual training  can  moralize." 

Angell  says:  "It  should,  however,  be  remarked  that,  strictly 
speaking,  there  is  probably  no  such  thing  as  a  purely  disciplin- 
ary study.  Any  study  is  likely  to  be  robbed  of  its  good  name 
and  labelled  a  formal  discipline,  if  somebody  chances  to  allege 
that  it  is  good  for  something  beside  that  for  which  it  obviously 
exists.  The  implication  of  our  deliberations  would  be  that 
every  study  has  latent  in  it  the  possibilities  of  becoming  to  some 
extent  a  formal  or  general  discipline.  Its  pursuit  may  effect 
intellectual  changes  not  confined  to  the  topic  with  which  it  is 

1  Dewey,  The  School  and  Society,  p.  24. 

2  Proc.  N.  E.  A.,  p.  177.  3  Adolescence,  I,  p.  407. 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  775 

ostensibly  engaged.  Meantime,  it  seems  to  be  a  safe  and  con- 
servative corollary  of  this  doctrine  that  no  study  should  have  a 
place  in  the  curriculum  for  which  this  general  disciplinary 
characteristic  is  the  chief  recommendation.  Such  advantage 
can  probably  be  gotten  in  some  degree  from  every  study  and  the 
intrinsic  values  of  each  study  afford  at  present  a  far  safer 
criterion  of  educational  worth  than  any  which  we  can  derive 
from  the  theory  of  formal  discipline." l 

What  Subjects  Develop  Most  Thought. — Those  subjects  de- 
velop the  mind  most  which  stimulate  the  most  thinking.  Now 
which  of  the  subjects  occupy  the  pupil's  thoughts  when  not 
actually  required  to  prepare  his  lessons?  It  seems  to  me  there 
can  be  but  one  answer.  Those  which  deal  with  things  and 
human  activities.  What  subjects  deal  with  these?  Plainly 
literature,  history,  economics,  sociology,  science.  The  Chicago 
Record-Herald  showed  upon  investigation  that  in  almost  every 
public  library  boys  were  seeking  books  on  electricity.  Great 
stacks  of  history  and  literature  find  their  way  without  compul- 
sion into  the  boys'  and  girls'  hands. 

The  boys  and  girls  in  the  high  schools  are  just  ready  to  grap- 
ple with  many  of  these  important  problems  which  occupy  the 
theatre  of  action  about  them.  Listen  to  their  debates.  What 
do  they  choose  for  topics?  How,  I  ask,  shall  we  fit  them  to 
form  intelligent  opinions  about  strikes,  the  tariff,  Cuban  reci- 
procity, Philippine  independence,  the  city  taxes,  municipal 
boodlers,  government  ownership,  etc.  ?  Kaiser  Wilhelm  said 
they  must  train  up  young  Germans,  not  young  Romans. 
Similarly  it  is  incumbent  upon  any  nation  to  train  its  growing 
boys  and  girls  through  the  problems  of  current  life  and  through 
those  forms  of  culture  which  enable  them  to  interpret  the  pres- 
ent. That  which  is  historical  in  literature,  language,  or  science 
may  have  a  very  vital  influence,  but  only  when  its  relation  to 
the  present  becomes  apparent. 

Our  boys  and  girls  of  to-day  are  to  be  in  the  midst  of  the  world's 
affairs  to-morrow,  and  still  in  view  of  this  there  are  those  who 

1  Angell,  Educational  Review,  June,  1908. 


776  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

would  designedly  shut  them  off  from  the  world,  busy  them  with 
expressions  of  thought  absolutely  remote  from  present-day 
interests,  make  them  learn  forms  and  formulae  which  the  ma- 
jority will  never  use  directly  or  indirectly;  all  in  the  hope,  well 
meant,  that  they  will  thus  learn  to  think.  The  only  way  to 
learn  to  think  is  to  deal  with  fundamental  concepts  which  are 
felt  to  be  worth  while.  If  we  merely  wish  to  give  something 
hard,  why  not  give  them  Russian  or  chess? 

Arrangement  of  the  Curriculum. — In  view  of  the  foregoing 
may  we  not  conclude  that  the  different  studies  should  be  ar- 
ranged so  that  the  traditional  subjects  shall  receive  no  more  at- 
tention than  others,  except  from  those  pupils  who  intend  to 
specialize?  The  course  might  well  include  some  Latin  for  all; 
possibly  a  year  or  two,  and  more  for  those  who  specialize.  It 
certainly  ought  to  include  some  modern  language,  as  that  is 
a  means  of  gaining  touch  with  present-day  civilization,  affords 
as  much  so-called  discipline  as  the  classics,  and  is  very  apt  to 
be  of  direct  value.  English  should  be  accorded  its  rightful 
place,  not  as  a  parsing  exercise — we  spend  years  too  much  time 
on  that  sort  of  profitless  work  now — but  English  which  leads 
the  student  into  all  the  best  thoughts  of  all  times.  The  youth 
should  become  saturated  with  the  greatest  literature,  and  through 
the  ideas  assimilated  his  entire  life  should  receive  bias  and  direc- 
tion. The  sciences  should  be  included  in  every  course  for  every 
student — not  enough  to  be  specialized,  but  enough  to  open  up 
the  whole  vista  of  possibilities.  History  should  be  accorded 
more  than  the  stingy  place  now  given  it.  All  should  be  given 
introductory  courses  in  algebra  and  geometry,  but  two  years  in 
the  high  school  should  be  ample.  Is  it  not  inconsistent  when 
we  plead  for  all-round  culture  and  then  shut  the  youth  up 
through  more  than  half  his  school  days  with  nothing  but  words, 
words,  words?  The  narrowest  sort  of  specialization!  The  one 
who  studies  natural  science  three  or  four  years  is  dubbed  a  nar- 
row specialist,  while  the  one  who  studies  dead  languages  twice 
as  long  is  said  to  be  gaining  all-round  training  and  laying  a 
broad  foundation! 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  777 

Then,  lastly,  there  should  be  added  to  the  groups  one  which 
we  may  term  the  social  group.  In  it  would  be  included  civics, 
something  of  political  economy,  social  facts  and  forces,  ethics,  if 
possible  a  little  psychology,  and  a  consideration  of  educational 
questions.  I  do  not  mean  the  pedagogy  of  teaching  arithmetic, 
but  such  questions  as  school  taxes,  the  relation  of  the  school  to 
the  state,  its  value  to  society,  the  significance  of  early  education 
in  forming  correct  habits,  the  value  of  co-operative  educational 
factors,  etc.  In  the  university,  according  to  real  needs,  I  be- 
lieve we  should  require  of  all  the  language  and  literature  of  the 
mother  tongue,  some  foreign  language  and  literature,  history, 
economics,  sociology,  several  sciences  (including  physiology), 
philosophy,  ethics,  psychology,  and  education.  These  are  the 
ones  that  help  most  in  producing  an  adjustment  to  environment. 
Abundant  opportunity  should  be  given  to  every  one  to  take  any 
other  subjects  of  human  value  as  electives.  The  range  of  elec- 
tives  offered  should  be  wide  and  the  instruction  afforded  should 
be  exhaustive. 

Relation  Between  Utility  and  Culture. — We  must  break  down 
the  false  notion  of  the  absolute  difference  between  that  which  is 
of  utility  and  that  which  affords  culture.  In  an  ideal  education 
they  will  be  identical.  Any  study  is  cultural  and  highly  edu- 
cative which  gives  power  (knowledge),  puts  one  in  touch  with 
and  in  sympathy  with  civilization;  makes  one  open-minded, 
gives  one  breadth  of  interests,  makes  one  interesting  and  likable, 
refined,  and  useful  to  society.  True  culture  means  developed 
intellect  and  refined  feelings;  deals  with  morality  as  well  as 
with  things  intellectual.  Dr.  Draper  says  that  one  may  obtain 
culture  from  Latin  and  Greek,  also  from  building  bridges. 
Those  subjects  then,  it  would  seem  to  me,  afford  most  culture 
which  come  nearest  to  life's  interests.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
school  to  help  the  pupil  find  those  interests.  No  study  in  the 
course  has  a  right  to  a  place  for  its  formal  discipline  alone. 
Who  would  crack  nuts  for  the  exercise  in  cracking  them  ?  The 
facts  themselves  should  be  of  sufficient  value  to  justify  their 
contemplation.  The  old  doctrine  of  educational  gymnastics 


778  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

must  give  way  to  the  new  one  of  nurture.  The  mind  grows 
by  what  it  feeds  on,  as  well  as  through  exercise. 

All  development  in  nature  has  come  about  because  exercise 
and  nourishment  in  a  given  direction  have  produced  develop- 
ment in  that  direction.  Hence  if  we  would  develop  the  pupil 
physically  he  must  have  physical  exercise  and  food;  if  he  is  to 
be  developed  mentally  he  must  have  mental  food  and  exercise; 
if  he  is  to  be  developed  morally  he  must  have  moral  nutrition, 
i.  e.,  knowledge  of  things  moral,  and  be  exercised  in  the  per- 
formance of  moral  acts.  If  the  pupil's  social  nature  is  to  be 
developed,  there  is  but  one  way,  and  that  is  by  placing  him  in 
a  social  environment.  The  one  who  pores  over  his  grammar 
and  his  mathematics,  and  excludes  himself  from  society,  will 
grow  up  anti-social.  Now,  all  school  life  from  the  kindergarten 
through  the  university  should  have  for  one  purpose  the  discov- 
ery of  aptitudes  and  interests,  and  the  developing  of  the  same. 
These  interests  should  be  many-sided.  Since  growth  is  special, 
breadth  of  interests,  largeness  of  view,  and  judicial-mindedness 
can  only  come  by  touching  life  at  many  points.  Poring  over 
one's  grammar,  valuable  as  it  may  be,  will  not  develop  one's 
social  nature,  one's  political  interests,  will  not  enlarge  one's 
views  of  men  and  events.  These  can  only  be  gained  through 
nourishment  secured  from  knowledge  along  these  lines.  The 
college  student  who  becomes  a  recluse  starves  his  nature  in  some 
of  the  more  important  directions.  He  becomes  narrow  and 
contracted  and  unable  to  sympathize  with  society.  Equally 
undesirable  is  it  for  the  student  to  spend  all  his  time  in  society 
of  the  present  and  never  know  the  great  truths  which  books 
may  reveal  to  him.  The  student  may  say,  "I  study  men,  not 
books."  This  is  sound,  if  rightly  interpreted,  but  he  should 
understand  that  there  are  some  men  besides  freshmen  well  worth 
knowing.1 

Many-Sidedness  of  Interest. — I  plead  for  the  cultivation  of 
breadth  of  interests  and  the  connecting  of  formal  school  work 

1  See  Bolton's  "Ethical  Aspects  of  Mental  Economy,"  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  71  :  246- 
257- 


GENERAL   DISCIPLINE  779 

with  life's  interests.  " But,"  says  some  one,  "many  interests  are 
utilitarian."  Granted;  but  utilitarian  does  not  necessarily 
mean  mercenary.  By  utilitarian,  I  mean  that  which  can  be 
utilized  in  connection  with  life's  pursuits  and  interests.  Sir 
Wm.  Hamilton  says  a  utilitarian  is  "Simply  one  who  prefers 
the  useful  to  the  useless ;  and  who  does  not  ?"  The  poet  studies 
the  flowers,  the  changing  tints  of  the  rainbow,  the  birds  of  the 
air,  the  hills  and  vales,  and  then  bursts  forth  into  song  utilizing 
the  stores  of  images  he  has  gathered.  The  engineer,  the  archi- 
tect, the  inventor,  the  railway  superintendent,  the  landscape 
artist,  the  business  promoter,  all  utilize  stores  of  imagery  in 
developing  their  various  plans.  Shall  we  not  hold  their  works 
in  as  high  esteem  as  those  of  the  poet,  the  philosopher,  the 
statesman,  or  the  classicist?  A  sanitary  engineer  purifies  a 
city  and  makes  possible  the  development  of  vigorous  bodies, 
which  in  turn  provide  conditions  for  sound  mental  life.  These 
together  promote  cheerfulness  and  higher  ideals.  Is  his  not  as 
high  an  order  of  service  to  humanity  as  that  of  one  who  writes 
verses,  paints  pictures,  or  echoes  a  foreign  tongue  or  two  ?  The 
one  who  designs  a  beautiful,  commodious,  and  hygienic  structure 
certainly  displays  as  much  mental  power  as  one  who  teaches 
history,  Latin,  or  philosophy  within  it.  His  contribution  to  the 
elevation  of  society  also  may  be  equally  great.  In  developing 
architectural  skill  he  has  secured  soul  expansion  not  less  than 
the  classicist.  To  be  sure  they  are  of  different  types,  but  society 
progresses  only  with  differentiation  and  specialization.1 

The  public  high  schools  and  colleges  should  ever  remain  true 
centres  of  liberal  culture,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  they 
should  assume  that  only  a  certain  few  protected  subjects  are 
cultural.  The  liberality  comes  from  the  breadth  of  interests 
stimulated,  the  development  of  a  scientific  spirit  and  an  open- 
ness of  mind.  The  method  which  pervades  is  more  indicative 
of  liberality  and  culture  than  the  program  of  studies.  We 
may  teach  dead  languages,  but  the  teacher  and  the  method  need 

1  See  Bolton's  "Facts  and  Fictions  Concerning  Educational  Values,"  School 
Review,  12  :  170-188. 


780  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION 

not  be  dead.  On  the  other  hand,  biology  may  be  taught  after 
a  method  that  stifles  expansive  spiritual  growth.  Great  abid- 
ing interests,  breadth  of  view,  and  richness  of  social  service  are 
marks  of  culture;  adherence  to  tradition,  contracted  vision,  and 
selfishness  of  action  are  marks  of  pedantry.  Melville  B.  Ander- 
son wrote:  "The  way  to  educate  a  man  is  to  set  him  to  work; 
the  way  to  get  him  to  work  is  to  interest  him;  the  way  to  interest 
him  is  to  vitalize  his  task  by  relating  it  to  some  form  of  reality." 
President  Eliot  said  in  his  address  on  "The  New  Definition  of  a 
Cultivated  Man"  that  a  cultivated  man  should  possess  not  all 
knowledge,  but  that  "which  will  enable  him,  with  his  individual 
personal  qualities,  to  deal  best  and  sympathize  best  with  nature 
and  with  other  human  beings." 

Supreme  Importance  of  Great  Teachers. — Finally,  and  of 
greatest  importance  as  educative  factors,  are  the  personality  and 
influence  of  the  living  men  and  women  who  are  in  the  environ- 
ment of  the  youth.  We  are  too  apt  to  regard  education  like 
a  manufactory.  So  many  units  of  Latin,  mathematics,  and 
history  put  into  the  hopper  we  assume  will  give  us  back  an 
educated  being.  But  no  matter  how  well  proportioned  the 
mixture  may  have  been,  unless  the  great  truths  and  worthy 
ideals  have  been  transformed  into  spiritual  forces,  all  is  unavail- 
ing. Civic  ideals  and  moral  virtues  may  have  been  rehearsed, 
but  only  when  they  have  quickened  dormant  possibilities  into 
abundant  life  have  they  been  to  any  worthy  degree  educative. 
Now,  great,  inspiring,  living  teachers  can  do  infinitely  more 
than  the  mere  pursuit  of  a  subject  toward  the  determination  of 
what  shall  take  root.  Next,  and  perhaps  not  even  second  in 
importance,  is  the  influence  of  companions.  Some  one  has  said 
with  great  truth  that  we  send  our  boy  to  the  school-master  to 
be  educated,  but  the  school-boys  educate  him.  They  largely 
determine  a  youth's  interests,  and  almost  entirely  his  actions. 
And  after  all,  actions  count  most.  We  will  with  all  we  have 
willed,  and  every  act  is  the  beginning  of  a  habit  that  becomes  a 
life-long  phantom  tyrant. 

Hence,  although  every  subject  may  contribute  to  will-power, 


GENERAL  DISCIPLINE  781 

the  direction  in  which  that  power  will  be  applied  is  absolutely 
determined  by  the  great  interests  and  passions  which  may 
happen  to  lay  hold  of  the  youth's  life.  So  the  course  of  study, 
the  paper  curriculum,  which  every  new  principal  "revises"  is  a 
secondary  matter.  The  all-important  thing  is  to  have  great 
souls  which  breathe  out  abundant  life,  inspiring  and  invigorating 
all  with  whom  they  come  in  contact. 


INDEX 


Abstract,  from  concrete  to,  533. 

Acquired  characters,  evidence  of 
transmission,  204. 

Activity,  instinctive,  158. 

Adams,  682,  751. 

Adaptation  and  adjustment,  16-27; 
in  unicellular  organisms,  17;  experi- 
ments in,  18;  in  nature,  20;  through 
artificial  selection,  21;  produces 
new  species,  22;  human,  25. 

Adjustment,  n,  16. 

Adolescence,  104,  547,  700. 

Agassiz,  65. 

Age  of  developing  life-interests,  700. 

"All-round"  education,  228. 

Altruism,  growth  of,  677. 

Amoeba,  diagram  of,  29. 

Anatomy  of  the  brain  and  spinal 
cord,  43. 

Anderson,  780. 

Andrews,  698. 

Angell,  747,  775. 

Animal  life  and  intelligence,  18,  20,  35. 

Aphasia,  55,  337. 

Apperception,  520-563;  general  il- 
lustrations, 520;  and  word-mean- 
ings, 523;  definitions  of,  526;  and 
heredity,  527;  and  illusions,  529; 
educational  suggestions,  533-563; 
and  individual  differences,  535;  of 
common  things  by  children,  536; 
and  reading,  540;  and  geography, 
544;  in  history  and  civics,  545; 
and  interest,  547;  and  application 
of  knowledge,  547;  and  arrange- 
ment of  curriculum,  551;  and  cor- 
relation, 552;  vs.  formal  discipline, 
556;  and  sympathy,  559;  and 
teacher's  preparation,  560. 

Aquatic  ancestry  of  man,  73. 

Aristotle,  411. 

Arithmetic,  errors  in  teaching,  132. 

Arrested  development,  174. 


Asceticism,  255. 

Ascham,  Roger,  417. 

Association:  nature  and  significance, 
349-370;  illustrations,  349,  351; 
physical  basis,  47,  352;  definitions, 
354;  and  suggestion,  355;  direction 
of,  356;  in  language,  357;  laws  of, 
358;  mechanical  and  thoughtful 
(diagrams),  358,  359;  vividness  of, 
361;  and  attention,  361;  and  repe- 
tition, 363;  natural  relations  of, 
364;  by  similarity,  365;  co-exist- 
ence the  fundamental  law,  366;  in 
all  experiences,  367;  verbal,  369; 
multiple,  385. 

Association  fibres,  diagram,  47;  a 
form  of  localization,  48;  formation 
of  paths  of,  52. 

Atavisms,  infant,  78;   psychic,  80,  82. 

Athletics,  nascent  periods  for,  171. 

Atrophy  of  harmful  instincts,  179. 

Attendance  at  school,  317. 

Audiometer,  300. 

Bacon,  595. 

Bagehot,  5. 

Bagley,  744. 

Bain,  476. 

Baker,  F.  T.,  543,  75!. 

Baker,  Smith,  263. 

Baldwin,  113,  167,  201,  327,  402 

Balfour,  113. 

Balliet,  172. 

Barnes,  682. 

Bastian,  242,  243. 

Bear,  polar,  69. 

Bell,  275. 

Bergstrom,  270. 

Belts,  474. 

Beyer,  109. 

Binet,  327,  376,  587,  681. 

Bischoff,  60. 

Black,  82. 


783 


784 


INDEX 


Bok,  286. 

Bolton,  F.  E.,  87,  118,  508,  600,  607, 

779- 

Bolton,  T.  L.,  376. 
Born,  76. 
Brain,    diagrams    of    developmental 

series,  37-45;      weights,     60,     245; 

size  and  intelligence,  240. 
Breeding    and    acquired    characters, 

205. 

Brewer,  205. 
Bridgman,  47,  324. 
Broca,  243. 
Brodie,  500. 
Brooks,  24,  74,  211. 
Browne,  250,  570. 
Brown  Sequard,  200. 
Bryan,  127,  162. 
Buckley,  326. 
Bunge,  327. 
Burbank,  320. 
Burk,  130. 

Burnham,  373,  491,  493. 
Burroughs,  486. 
Butler,  3,  u,  103,  106. 

Carpenter,  Frank  G.,  275,  550. 

Carpenter,  George  R.,  751. 

Carpenter,  W.  B.,  36,  240,  243,  253, 
339,  380,  485,  532. 

Character,  aim  of  the  school,  12. 

Child,  the  centre  of  interest,  7;  not 
a  small  adult,  95. 

Children^  minds,  contents  of,  536. 

Chrisman,  297. 

Chubb,  417,  419,  542. 

Church  and  Peterson,  49. 

Clam,  nervous  system,  33. 

Clearness  of  ideas,  389. 

Clouston,  187. 

Cohn,  291,  292;    test  types,  294. 

Coleridge,  594. 

Colvin,  392,  747. 

Compayr6,  516. 

Comprehension,  389. 

Concept,  the,  601-613;  importance 
of,  60 1 ;  psychological  meaning, 
601;  genetic  view,  603;  and  the 
curriculum,  605;  and  language, 
608;  statement  of,  611. 

Concrete  to  abstract,  139,  533. 

Conduct,  springs  of,  89. 


Conn,  202,  216. 

Conservation,  54. 

Constructiveness,  158. 

Cook,  Joseph,  388. 

Cooke,  Jay,  326. 

Cooley,  561. 

Co-ordination,  through  the  brain,  33. 

Coover,  747. 

Cope,  24,  85,  204. 

Correlation,    35,    57,    225,    231-258, 

552,  76°- 

Crayfish,  nervous  system  of,  35. 

Creighton,  617. 

Crime  and  heredity,  221. 

Critchett,  532. 

Culture,  777. 

Culture  epochs:  and  education,  108- 
118;  meaning,  108;  Herbartian 
applications,  108-^112;  critical  con- 
siderations, 112. 

Cumulation  of  effects,  54,  196. 

Curibsity,  156. 

Curriculum,  130,  171,  396,  551,  605, 

606,  769>  775-777- 
Cutter,  208. 

Dark  Ages  and  race  heredity,  220. 
Darwin,  21,  23,  24,  67,  147,  203,  207, 

208,  209,  636. 
Deahl,  409,  413,  414. 
Deduction,  630. 
Defectives,  training  of,  581. 
Degeneration,  122,  343. 
Delage,  213. 
Delboeuf,  329. 

Democracy,  education  in,  320. 
De  Moor,  20. 
De  Varigny,  73. 
Development,  arrested,  174. 
Development  and  specialization,   28, 

59,  63. 

De  Vries,  22,  83,  196. 
Dewey,  390,  452,  589,  698,  773. 
Discipline,  general,  556,  736-781. 
Discovery  of  powers,  228. 
Dispositions,  332. 
Disuse,  66. 

Differences,  individual,  345. 
Differentiation,  beginnings  of,  32. 
Diffusion  of  energy,  30,  51. 
Dohrn,  76. 
Domestication,  21. 


INDEX 


785 


Donaldson,  8,  48,  50,  57,  60,  176,  224, 

241,  242,  260,  304,  755. 
Drawing,  order  in,  137. 
Drill  and  drudgery,  771. 
Drummond,  70,  73,  75,  77. 
Drunkenness  and  heredity,  208. 
Dugdale,  192. 
Dukes,  289. 
Dumont,  330. 
Durand,  231. 
Dutton,  383. 
Dynamic  relations,  323. 

Ear  before  eye  in  education,  97. 

Education:  new  interpretation,  1-15; 
should  follow  nature,  10,  26,  88; 
and  heredity,  13,  26;  and  neural 
development,  13,  46,  51,  62;  means 
experience,  59;  limits  of,  216,  220, 
224. 

Educational  values,  736-781. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  193. 

Eimer,  21,  149,  201,  207,  208. 

Eliot,  318,  321,  501,  576,  696,  701,  780. 

Emerson,  521. 

Emotions,  633-665;  meaning,  633; 
bodily  accompaniments  of,  636; 
Lange-James  theory  of,  637;  ef- 
fects of  exercise,  645;  aesthetic, 
646;  intellectual,  647;  children's 
egoism,  652;  sympathy,  652;  fear, 
655;  anger,  660;  altruism,  677. 

Englemann,  404. 

Ensign,  277. 

Environment,  influence  of  chance,  5. 

Epilepsy  in  guinea-pigs,  200. 

Evolution,  by  atrophy,  20;  and  edu- 
cation, 13,  58;  has  it  ceased?  61. 

Excursions,  449. 

Exercise,  physiology  of,  260. 

Experience,  school  of,  6;  effects  of,  18. 

Eye-defects,  185,  290;  prevalence  of, 
292;  tests  for,  293. 

Farm  life,  educational  value  of,  3, 
456,  460,  494,  536,  573-556,  725. 

Fatigue:  effects,  260;  meaning,  261; 
causes,  262;  kinds,  262;  signs, 
266;  relation  to  memory,  269;  ex- 
perimental study  of,  269;  and 
school  program,  275;  and  hered- 
ity, 282. 


Faunce,  498,  694. 
Fay,  301. 
Fear,  655. 

Feeble-minded,  training  of,  128,  711. 
Fisher,  194,  218. 

Fiske,  61,  102,  103,  104,  243,  303. 
Forbush,  688. 

Forgetting,  physiology  of,  338.. 
Formal  discipline,  176;    see  also  Gen- 
eral discipline. 
Formative  vs.  reformative  education, 

3i5- 

Fox,  148. 

Fracker,  376. 

Franklin,  421. 

Froebel,  160. 

From  fundamental  to  accessory,  119- 
139;  meaning,  119;  order  in  phylo- 
genesis and  ontogenesis,  120;  illus- 
trated in  development  of  nervous 
system,  121;  order  of  degeneration, 
122;  physical  antecedent  to  men- 
tal, 124;  in  voluntary  motor  ability, 
127;  in  training  feeble-minded,  128; 
order  in  psychic  development,  129; 
adaptation  of  curriculum  to  stages 
of  growth,  130. 

Fullerton,  719. 

Gallon,  60,  189,  190,  191,  198,  215, 
220,  221,  230,  263,  478,  486. 

Gamble,  379. 

Gaskell,  249. 

General  discipline,  736-781;  mean- 
ing, 736;  prevalence  of  theory, 
738;  objections,  740;  experimen- 
tal evidence  against,  742;  relation 
to  memory  training,  749;  ami  in- 
dividual variations,  752;  biological 
evidence,  753;  and  content  of  study, 
765;  prejudices  through  doctrine 
of  innate  ideas,  772;  in  relation  to 
apperception,  773;  and  arrange 
ment  of  curriculum,  776. 

General  ideas,  586. 

Geography  and  imagination,  494; 
and  apperception,  544. 

Geometry,  order  in,  132,  629. 

Germany,  curriculum  in,  137,  391, 
508,  551,  606. 

Germ-plasm,  198. 

Gill-clefts  in  man,  74. 


y86 


INDEX 


Goebel,  20. 

Goethe,  412. 

Gordy,  453. 

Graded  system  overemphasized,  289. 

Grades  in  school,  308,  310,  312. 

Grammar,  133,  181. 

Grasping  movements,  79,  153. 

Gratiolet,  243. 

Greatness,  hereditary,  189,  192. 

Griesbach,  270. 

Growth  of  brain,  8,  50. 

Hall,  4,  61,  82,  86,  92,  135,  164,  167, 
176,  285,  304,  342,  496,  522,  524, 
539,  S4i,  572,  656,  717,  729,  774. 

Halleck,  352,  355,  380,  387,  456,  580, 

585. 

Haller,  325. 
Hancock,  128. 
Hanus,  74. 
Harris,  3,  28,  176,  196,  209,  328,  411, 

458,  585- 

Hartley,  325. 

Head  measurements,  60. 

Health  of  school  children,  283. 

Hearing:  prevalence  of  defects  in, 
296,  298;  tests  of,  299;  causes  of 
defects,  300. 

Height,  310. 

Henderson,  376. 

Henri,  376. 
,  Herbart,  55,  700. 

Heredity,  183-230;  limits  set  by,  9; 
and  memory,  90,  196;  meaning  of, 
183;  physical,  183;  of  disease,  184; 
and  life-insurance,  187;  mental, 
188;  apparent  exceptions  to,  192; 
transmission  of  acquired  modifica- 
tions, 108;  Weismannism  and  La- 
marckianism,  198-219;  of  instincts, 
203;  social,  225;  and  education,  10, 
213,  229;  deafness,  300. 

Hering,  50,  347. 

Hertwig-Mark,  75,  76. 

Hinsdale,    100,    321,    440,    455,    740, 

750- 

His,  71,  76. 
History   and   imagination,   515;    and 

apperception,  545. 
Hodge,  260. 
Holmes,  Marion,  267. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  166,  309. 


Home  as  an  educator,  2. 

Howe,  219. 

Howell,  49,  224,  304. 

Hunt,  413. 

Hunter,  233. 

Huxley,  24,  63,  71,  324,  590. 

Ideo-motor  action,  400. 

Illusion,  470. 

Imagination,  464-519;  hereditary, 
190;  popular  and  scientific  mean- 
ings of,  464,  465;  definition,  466; 
illustrations,  466;  relation  to  mem- 
ory, 469;  dream  images,  470;  and 
thinking,  471;  and  nervous  proc- 
esses, 475;  children's,  477;  crea- 
tive and  productive,  477;  and  book 
knowledge,  478;  and  belief,  482; 
limitations  of,  484;  individual  dif- 
ferences in,  486,  489;  educational 
bearings,  488-519;  meaning  of 
training,  489;  importance  of  varied 
development,  492;  abnormal,  492; 
in  geography,  494;  in  science,  500; 
and  religious  awakening,  503;  and 
invention,  505;  in  study  of  litera- 
ture, 506;  in  literary  masterpieces, 
509;  and  dramatization,  511;  in 
composition,  512;  in  history,  515; 
in  fine  arts,  516;  cultivation  neces- 
sary, 517;  in  every-day  life,  518; 
wonders  of,  518. 

Imitation,  397-430;  and  interest,  115; 
general  illustrations,  397;  among 
animals,  399;  non-voluntary,  399, 
405;  fundamental  meaning,  400; 
in  lower  organisms,  403;  auto- 
imitation,  404;  voluntary,  406; 
dramatic,  408;  not  servility,  409; 
social,  409;  in  art,  412;  in  litera- 
ture and  language  teaching,  416; 
in  developing  personality,  421;  in 
adolescence,  423;  in  school  govern- 
ment, 426;  and  interest,  687. 

Improvising,  514. 

Induction,  614-630;  meaning,  614; 
illustrations,  615;  classes,  616; 
children's,  618;  examples  of  in 
teaching,  619;  in  relation  to  text- 
books, 624;  and  order  of  instruc- 
tion, 624;  importance  and  general 
use,  626. 


INDEX 


787 


Individual  variations  and  differences, 
302-321;  anatomical,  303;  mental, 
305,  306;  in  memory,  308;  in 
school  ages,  308;  measurements 
of,  309;  in  maturing,  309;  in  ex- 
amination papers,  312;  recognition 
of  in  education,  317-320;  other 
differences,  345,  535,  714,  752. 

Individuality,  226. 

Infancy,  lengthened  period  of  human, 
101. 

Inference,  614. 

Inheritance  and  education,  183. 

Inhibition  of  memories,  344. 

Innate  ideas,  254,  772. 

Instinct,  140-182;  definition,  140; 
habits  and  reflexes,  143;  not  inva- 
riable, 144;  genesis  of,  145;  modi- 
fied by  environment  and  educa- 
tion, 146,  147;  and  intelligence, 
148;  not  confined  to  lower  ani- 
mals, 150;  and  vital  reactions, 
152;  of  locomotion,  153;  grasping, 
153;  expressive,  155;  curiosity, 
156;  activity  and  constructiveness, 
158;  play,  160;  social,  163;  and 
interest,  172;  transitory,  172; 
atrophy  if  not  exercised,  173; 
growth  of  higher,  180. 

Institutional  influences,  2. 

Interest,  666-704;  nature  of,  666;  as 
a  means,  668;  as  an  end,  669;  vs. 
effort,  670;  in  effort,  670;  prime 
consideration  in  education,  672; 
and  instinct,  675;  of  child  is 
egoistic,  676;  growth  of  altruism, 
677;  in  means  and  ends,  680;  in 
processes  or  results,  685;  and  ap- 
perception, 688;  and  responsibility, 
and  adolescence,  700;  permanent, 
early  developed,  702. 

Inventory  of  pupil's  knowledge,  535. 

Iowa,  cost  of  state  educational  and 
reformatory  institutions,  315. 

Ireland,  128. 

James,  82,  151,  248,  330,  337,  347, 
355.  36S,  368,  371,  408,  410,  549, 

565^ 639.  7°8>  73 i- 
Jendrassik,  477. 
Johnson,  G.  E.,  711. 
Johnson,  H.  C.,  309. 


Jordan,  17,  24,  183,  219,  317,  769. 
Judd,  747. 
Juke  family,  192. 

Kay,  334. 

Keen,  46. 

Keller,  Helen,  353. 

Kirkpatrick,  543. 

Knowledge  and  power,  761. 

Kolliker,  76. 

Kotelmann,  292,  451. 

Kraft-Ebing,  477. 

Krause,  71. 

Kuhlmann,  329. 

Kiihne,  404. 

Laboratory,  577. 

Lamarck,  198,  et  seq. 

Lange,  549. 

Language:  nascent  periods  for,  170; 
and  concepts,  608;  and  motor  ex- 
pression, 580;  and  thought,  595. 

Lankester,  244. 

Laser,  271. 

Le  Conte,  33,  40,  62,  66,   245,   249, 

53i- 

Le  Row,  524. 
Leuba,  270. 
Lewes,  67,  173. 
Lewis,  745. 

Life-insurance,  and  heredity,  187. 
Lobsien,  376. 
Localization,  41,  42,  44. 
.  Locke,  595. 
Lombroso,  226. 
Lotze,  474. 

Lower  stages  prerequisite  to  higher,  92. 
Lubbock,  35,  149. 
Lukens,  270. 
Luther,  704. 

Mach,  83. 

MacMillan,  225. 

Mammal  brain,  39,  40. 

Mantegazza,  477. 

Manual  training,  182,  572. 

Marce,  208. 

Marie  Antoinette,  236. 

Marriage,  registration  of,  217. 

Marshall,  A.  M.,  64,  65,  77,  86,  140, 

144,  166. 
Marshall,  M.,  76. 


788 


INDEX 


Maudsley,  250,  253,  311. 

McKim,  218. 

McLellan,  390,  393. 

McMurry,  139,  555,  556,  683. 

Measurements,  variations  in,  309. 

Medical  inspection,  285. 

Medullation,  176. 

Memory:  inherited,  90,  188,  196; 
nature  of,  322-348;  biological 
meaning,  325;  in  micro-organisms, 
326;  subconscious,  328;  physical 
basis,  329;  race,  331;  persistence 
°f>  335!  early,  342;  experiments 
in  training,  372;  health  and,  379; 
attention  and,  381;  interest  and, 
388;  permanence  of,  392;  mne- 
monics, 394;  and  arrangement  of 
curriculum,  396. 

Mental  laws,  immutable,  89. 

Meumann,  325,  346,  376,  384. 

Mill,  732. 

Mind  and  body,  231-258. 

Miner,  438. 

Ministration  to  special  needs,  228. 

Minot,  171,  281. 

Mnemonics,  394. 

Moll,  477. 

Monroe,  256. 

Montaigne,  256. 

Montesquieu,  236. 

Moral  education,  705-735;  and 
drudgery,  729;  relation  to  ideals 
and  expression,  731. 

Morality,  and  heredity,  225. 

Morgan,  89,  90,   142,   143,   158,   201, 

33°,  372>  520- 

Morgan,  T.  H.,  212. 

Morrison,  250. 

Mosso,  168,  189,  262,  269,  311,  570. 

Motor  ability,  127;  nascent  periods 
of,  1 68. 

Motor  expression,  564-582;  an  index 
to  mind,  564,  571;  in  relation  to 
health  or  disease,  566;  purpose  in 
education,  568;  more  than  manual 
training,  572;  in  the  home,  575;  in 
the  laboratory,  577;  in  language, 
580;  in  training  defectives,  581;  in 
moral  education,  725,  732. 

Miiller  and  Pilzecker,  376. 

Miiller,  Fritz,  65. 

Mumford,  77. 


Munroe,  592. 

Miinsterberg,  236,  238,  251,  258. 

Museums,  496. 

Music:     fundamentals    in,    136;     in 

emotional  development,  646. 
Musical  tendencies,  hereditary,  190. 

Nascent  periods,  167-171. 

National  Education  Association,  12. 

Nature  and  nurture,  183-230. 

Nervous  structure,  30. 

Nervous  system:  development  of. 
28-62,  121;  none  in  plants,  29;  ot 
vertebrates,  36;  proportion  of 
parts,  39-45;  comparisons  sum- 
marized, 41;  and  recapitulation,  72. 

Neural  modifications,  324. 

Neurology  and  heredity,  223. 

Neurotic  tendencies,  hereditary,  185. 

Norsworthy,  746. 

Object-lessons,  446. 

Observation:  and  apperception,  458; 
and  attention,  459;  effects  of,  spe- 
cial, 460;  methods  of  training,  461. 

Ontogeny,  83;  retraces  phylogeny, 
1 20. 

Oppenheim,  750. 

Order  of  motor  and  mental  growth, 
98. 

Organic  evolution,  21;  selection,  201 

Organization  of  knowledge,  612. 

Origin  of  species,  21. 

Orr,  197,  201,  239. 

Osborn,  201. 

O'Shea,  14,  270,  279,  743. 

Overpressure,  281. 

Oyster,  nervous  system  of,  34. 

Painters,  families  of,  190. 
Parkman,  548. 
Pater,  416. 
Patten,  115. 
Paulsen,  141,  720. 
Pearson,  185,  196. 
Peckham,  35. 
Pedagogical  blunders,  123. 
Perception,  465. 
Peterson  and  Church,  49. 
PfefTer,  403. 

Phylogenesis  determines  ontogene 
sis,  120. 


INDEX 


789 


Phylogeny,  83. 

Physical  care,  257. 

Physical     growth     precedes    mental, 

124. 

Pictures,  499. 
Pillsbury,  376,  378. 
Plastic  period,  importance,  56. 
Plasticity,  meaning  of,  8. 
Play,  4,  160,  258,  284. 
Powell,  94. 

Power  and  knowledge,  761. 
Prepotentialities,  hereditary,  8. 
Primitive  arts,  value  of,  5. 
Print,  size  of,  295. 
Projection  fibres,  48. 
Protozoans,  17,  29,  30. 
Psychic  development,  order  of,  129. 
Psychogenesis,  law  in,  164. 
Psychological  vs.  chronological,  114. 
Psycho-physical  parallelism,  238. 
Psychotherapeutics,  249. 

Quain,  234. 
Queyrat,  493. 

Rabl,  76. 

Reading,  association  in,  52-54. 

Reasoning,  587;  see  also  Induction 
and  Deduction. 

Recall,  modes  of,  390. 

Recapitulation:  theory  of,  63-87;  law 
stated,  65;  human,  69;  evidences, 
70;  stages,  71;  in  nervous  system, 
72;  incomplete,  85;  educational 
significance,  88-106;  not  fatalistic, 
91;  and  order  of  development,  91; 
and  relative  values  of  knowledge, 
106;  can  not  determine  exact  cur- 
riculum, 113. 

Recorde,  Robert,  176. 

Reed,  309. 

Reflex  arc,  diagram,  32. 

Reformative  measures,  315. 

Rein,  109. 

Renaissance,  present-day,  257. 

Reproduction,  333,  337. 

Responsibility  _and  interest,  691. 

Retrogressions,  68. 

Reverberations,  166. 

Reviews,  555. 

Reynolds,  412. 

Rhabanus  Maurus,  256. 


Ribot,  82,  83,  184,  186,  188,  189,  379, 

476,  586,  656. 
Robinson,  79,  80. 
Romanes,  24,  35,    70,  148,  149, 150, 

203,  243. 

ROSS,    122. 

Royce,     166,     175,     265,     410,    414, 

708. 

Rudimentary  organs,  66. 
Russell,  93. 

Sachs,  187. 

Schaeffer,  448,  450,  517,  735. 

Schmidt,  Oskar,  68,  69. 

Schofield,  250. 

School  diseases,  285. 

School,  interpreter  of  experience,  7. 

Science,  order  in  teaching,  134. 

Scott,  no,  in,  485. 

Scripture,  579. 

Search,  309,  319. 

Seashore,  300. 

Sedgwick,  92,  185. 

Selection,  importance  of,  217. 

Self -activity:     beginnings  of,    28;     in 

plants,  28;  and  interest,  690. 
Sensation,  465. 
Sense    awakening    before    reflection, 

100. 

Sense-organs,  efficiency  of,  449. 
Sensori-motor  action,  402. 
Shakespeare   and    imagination,    409- 

5«- 

Shaw,  296,  376. 

Shinn,  158. 

Short  circuits,  83. 

Sidis,  410. 

Sikorsky,  271. 

Simple  to  complex,  138. 

Sleep,  289. 

Small,  M.  H.,  478. 

Small,  A.  W.,  774. 

Snail,  nervous  system  of,  34. 

Snellen,  test  letters,  293. 

Social  heredity  and  morality,  225. 

Socrates,  772, 

Soldan,  561. 

Spalding,  655. 

Specialization:  of  function,  16-27;  in 
nervous  system,  28;  significance  for 
education,  28;  cerebral,  50. 

Speech,  order  in  development,  131. 


790 


INDEX 


Spelling,  387. 

Spencer,  99,  106,  133,  138,  139,  157, 

208,  239,  243. 
Spiral  plan,  607. 
Stanley,  640. 

Starfish,  nervous  system,  33. 
Starling,  249. 
Steinthal,  521. 
Stevenson,  420. 
Stewart,  250. 
Stokes,  395. 
Stout,  472,  561. 
Strahan,  187. 
Study  periods,  382. 
Suggestion,  355;   and  interest,  687. 
Sully,  157,  409,  S9°- 
Sutton,  75. 
Survival  movements,  77. 

Tanner,  264. 

Tarde,  410. 

Teachers,  importance  of  great,  780. 

Thinking,  584-600;  preliminary 
meaning,  584;  in  other  processes, 
584:  higher  phases,  589;  effective, 
590;  independence  in,  591;  school 
should  train  in,  593;  and  language, 
595;  habits  of,  596;  concentration 
in,  598. 

Thomson,      184,     185,      186,      187, 

212. 

Thorndike,  224,  271,  313,  739,  742- 

744,  756. 

Thurston,  547. 

Titchener,  269,  354,  366,  635. 

Tracy,  407,  656. 

Transformations  in  process,  69. 

Transmission  of  acquired  characters, 
198. 

Tuberculosis,  hereditary  predisposi- 
tions, 185. 

Tuke,  232,  233,  234. 

Turner,  79. 

Twins,  history  of,  215. 

Tyler,  122,  125. 

Tyndall,  500. 

Understanding,  472;   of  words,  523. 
Unfoklment,  order  of,  n,  96. 
Uniformity,  321. 
Unity  of  mental  life,  587. 


Use  and  disuse,  56. 
Utility,  777. 

Van  Liew,  109. 

Variations,  germinal,  an. 

Venn,  60,  324. 

Verworn,  404. 

Vestigial  structures,  73. 

Vitality  and  mentality,  227. 

Volition,  705-735;  meaning,  705: 
genesis  of  voluntary  action,  706; 
movements  involved  in,  708;  ini- 
tial stages  of,  710;  low  degree  of,  in 
feeble-minded,  711;  individual  vari- 
ations in,  713;  relation  to  impulses, 
715;  relation  to  "free-will,"  716; 
and  freedom,  719;  educational  sug- 
gestions, 722;  directions  of  control, 
723;  motor  culture  and  moral 
culture,  725;  intellectual  control, 
726;  emotional  control,  728;  see, 
also,  Will. 

Von  Baer,  65,  70. 

Votaw,  286,  288. 

Wallace,  63,  71,  72,  150,  199. 

Warner,  58,  161,  289,  565,  709. 

Weight,  310. 

Weismann,  198,  211,  216.     * 

Welton,  595. 

"Whetstone  of  Witte,"  176. 

Whewell,  459. 

Whitaker,  43. 

Whitman,  415. 

Whittier,  456. 

Wiedersheim,  304. 

Will:  meaning,  705;  strong,  713; 
means  accumulated  tendencies,  715; 
and  freedom,  719;  and  delibera- 
tion, 734;  habit  and  character,  734; 
see,  also,  Volition. 

Witt,  518. 

Woods,  185,  194. 

Work,  fatigue,  and  hygiene,  260-301; 
and  rest  periods,  273. 

Wright,  269. 

Wundt,  476,  S31- 

Zeissing,  304. 

Zoological  and  psychological  scale 
compared,  244. 


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